Children’s time allocation and the socioeconomic gap in human capital
利用澳大利亚4-14岁儿童的时间使用日记，发现低社会经济地位儿童花更多时间在数字媒体上、更少在校外充实活动上，这解释了约3%的数学技能差距，但对识字和心理健康无显著影响。
Children’s time investments in various activities may be important for reducing socioeconomic status (SES) gaps in educational and mental health outcomes. Using detailed time use diaries of Australian children aged 4–14, we observe that children from low SES backgrounds spend more time on digital media and less time on out-of-school enrichment activities, organised or for leisure. We explain the SES gap by employing a human capital development panel model and find that this difference contributes about 3% to the observed SES gap in numeracy skills. The results are supported by exogeneity tests and numerous robustness checks. The contribution is larger for males, older age groups, and if the cumulative effect on learning is considered. No clear results are found for literacy skills and mental health outcomes. The findings imply that interventions promoting a shift away from digital media towards out-of-school enrichment activities could help reduce the SES gap in human capital.