The Role of Preferences and Opportunity Costs in Determining the Time Allocated to Housework

Abstract

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Do significant labor market events change who does the chores? Paid work, housework, and power in mixed-gender Australian households

“…Heterogeneity across couples in housework time allocation may also exist due to individual/couple-specific preferences regarding household production tasks and gender role attitudes. Research suggests that such couplespecific factors do matter (see Stratton 2012 for evidence regarding preferences, and Greenstein 1996and 2000, Cunningham 2008, and Baxter and Hewitt 2013 for evidence regarding attitudes). These complications mean that a clean identification of the 'spousal power effect' on the intra-household division of unpaid labor using cross-sectional data has been elusive.…”

The determinants of housework time

“…In the one study that incorporates individual-specific preferences in an analysis of couples' housework time, the evidence suggests that men's preferences matter more than women's [13]. The more men reported enjoying housework tasks, the more time they spent and the less time their partner spent on housework.…”

“…Previous work of the author contains a larger number of background references for the material presented here and has been used intensively in all major parts of this article [3], [5], [11], [13].…”

Making Dough or Baking Dough? Spousal Housework Responsibilities in Germany, 1992-2011

“…Gupta, 2006Gupta, , 2007Stratton, 2012), whereby the partner's absolute income is the main determinant of time allocated to housework. Apart from these two resource-based explanations, another line of theory has suggested that women might over proportionally contribute to housework to affirm traditional gender roles, a behavior that sociologists term as doing gender (e.g.…”

“…Stratton (2012) suggests that both factors play a role but concentrates on spousal opportunity cost in time. This is also the emphasis of empirical research on time availability, which has focused on the effects of employment status and working hours on the division of housework.…”