The power of love: A subtle driving force for unegalitarian labor division?

Abstract

In this paper, I experimentally investigate couples' specialization decisions and examine the gender-specific patterns in labor division arising within heterosexual couples. Eighty participants-20 real couples and 20 pairs of strangers-play a two-stage game, paired up either with their partner or a stranger of the opposite sex. In the first stage, participants make a joint decision on how to play the game: They can both complete a performancebased paid task (task A) or have one of the players perform an unpaid task (task B), thereby tripling the pay-rate for the partner playing task A. After completing their tasks, participants are informed about their pay-offs in private and then asked to make an individual decision about what proportion of their income to pay into a common pool, where it is increased by 20% and distributed equally between the two players. I find that women are significantly more likely to give up their income autonomy and perform the unpaid task when playing with their partner rather than with an unfamiliar man. Men's behavior is not affected by familiarity with their female partner.

Intergenerational cooperation within the household: a Public Good game with three generations

“…Prior research has analyzed cooperation within families (Reynolds, 2015;Görges, 2015;Beblo and Beninger, 2017), but these studies focus on same-generation or twogeneration cooperation, with little or no experimental evidence provided on the level of cooperation among three generations. To bridge this gap, we report in this paper a repeated Public Good game with three generations (youths, parents, and grandparents) with the participation of 165 volunteers (55 individuals aged between 17 and 19, one of their parents, and one of their grandparents).…”

“…Prior research has also analyzed cooperation in families. 1 A trust game played by couples and strangers is shown in Görges (2015), finding that women are more likely to cooperate (e.g., give up their income autonomy and perform the unpaid task) when playing with a partner rather than with an unfamiliar man. Beblo and Beninger (2017) test in-couple income pooling in Germany, and find that income pooling, and thus cooperation, is more common among couples in which the spouses' socio-economic characteristics are more similar.…”

What if women earned more than their spouses? An experimental investigation of work-division in couples

“…Specialization in couples has also been studied byGoerges (2015), however, for a task where spouses jointly decide whether to specialize or not and who of the two partners should take the role of the 'advantaged' player.4 In other domains(Gneezy et al, 2009) it has been shown that gender differences can be inverted given different institutions. Specifically it was observed that the generally believed greater competitiveness of men disappears in a matriarchic culture.…”

Couple's Labor Supply, Taxes, and the Division of Housework in a Gender-Neutral Lab

“…Contrary to these findings, Auspurg et al (2014) and Cochard et al (2015) do not show any systematic gender differences in the division of housework within couples. However, the couple's reference is important, as demonstrated in the lab by Görges (2015). She finds that women are significantly more likely to perform an unpaid task when they play with their beloved compared to playing with a stranger and explains it with social gender norms.…”