Serial dictatorship and unmatch reduction: A problem of Japan's nursery school choice

•The trade-off between using serial dictatorship and unmatch reduction in school choices is analyzed.•The result depends on conditions such as children's preferences and schools' capacities.•The study is motivated by a social problem in Japan called the “taiki-jidou (waiting children)” problem.

We conduct a simulation analysis to see the trade-off between employing serial dictatorship and reducing unmatched children in nursery school choices. It is motivated by a social problem in Japan: there are a large number of children who wish to get into nursery schools but stay unmatched, while serial dictatorship is widely used.