The upward drift in viscosity which is characteristic of paper coating compositions prepared from alkali-swellable latices to which alkali has been added can be arrested at any desired level by including in the coating composition 0.1-10 parts by weight, per 100 parts by weight of dry solids in the uncompounded alkali-swellable latex, of a poly- C.sub.2-4 alkylene glycol having an average molecular weight of about 100-5,000. Polyethylene and polypropylene glycols having molecular weights of about 1,200 are shown to produce excellent results with latices of carboxylic copolymers of butadiene and styrene.