Why do women do more housework

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Why do women do more housework?

• Economic explanations availability, resources,
  bargaining
• Cultural explanations gender norms

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• Time availability
• Individuals rationally allocate time to household
  labor in relation to time available to do work
  and amount that needs to be done
• Women do more b/c they work less in the paid
  labor force

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• Relative Resources
• Essentially, individuals trade market work for
  non-market work
• Whoever contributes a greater share of household
  resources will do a lesser share of housework

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• Bargaining
• Economic men make fewer investments in
  relationship-specific human capital (children,
  household-skills), granting greater bargaining
  power.

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• Bargaining (farther along in relationship)
• Cultural other values lead to lower desirability
  for women as time passes, increasing bargaining
  power for men
• Double standard for aging

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• Gender norms
• Men and womens housework conforms to gender
  norms about the performance of housework
• Since households are thought to be womens
  sphere, performance in this area reflects on
  competence of women, not the man

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• Why the change over the past 30 years?
• Women are now more educated and more likely to
  work
• Fewer women are married and living with children
  in the household

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• Why the change over the past 30 years?
• Women do less work even after adjusting for
  compositional differences
• E.g. married women today do less housework than
  married women 30 years ago

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• Why do women do more housework than men?
• Examine housework in families with two earners
  (Brines 1994)
• Economic explanations (broadly) men do more
  housework when they earn less
• Gender norm explanation men do less housework
  when women earn more (gender displays)

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• Economic explanation correct until women provide
  gt50 of support
• Evidence of need for men/women to engage in
  appropriate displays through housework.

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• The Big Picture(s)
• Understanding why and how women and men are
  differently located within social structures
  (work, family)
• Social structures are areas in which people
  assume roles and receive rewards from others for
  performing those roles well

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• Roles at work and at Home
• At work ?
• At home?

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• Theories/explanations of Difference
• Oppositional dialogue between
• Individual difference
• Institutional effects

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• Individual difference
• Men and women choose different roles, because of
• Biology
• Preferences
• Investment in human capital

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• Institutional/structural
• Institutions and the roles within them choose
  people and structure how they act
• Rewards and sanctions for particular kinds of
  behavior change individuals actions
• Family?
• Discrimination at work?

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• Change over time
• Changes in preferences?
• Changes in institutions?

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• Future change
• Do we change preferences?
• Do we change institutions?

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• Today Trends in the family
• Large changes in
• Length of marital search
• Extent of household dissolution
• Fertility

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• Market for Partners
• How do markets work generally?
• Exchange in a market for partners
• Attractiveness
• Earning power
• Entertainment
• Supportiveness

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• Todays coverage is trends next class will focus
  on explanations

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• Partner Search
• Search the activity of collecting information
  and weighing options
• Information is costly

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• Partner Search
• Information about the characteristics of
  potential partners is gathered through time spent
  with those potential partners
• or, now, through dating websites

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• Search is now much longer and more extensive than
  in the past.
• Why?
• Longer expected length of relationship
• Cost of search lower with change in values
• Better opportunities (with increasing
  urbanization and overall wage gains)

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• Social Structure and Markets for Partners
• Social structure (the aggregate of values and
  patterns) can drive the results of markets
• By influencing preferences
• Mens preference for woman who specializes in
  housework, womens alternate preference
• Mens ability to indulge preference for beauty
  with decline of home production
• By influencing the types of partners available

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• Marital search
• Marriage marks the end of marital search
• Measuring marriage
• Marriage rates
• Median age at marriage
• married at some age

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• 1890-1950 decreasing length of marital search
• 1950-1990 increasing marital search, convergence
  in men and womens length of marital search.

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• The beginning of partner search
• Age at first sexual activity
• Increases from 1950-1980, but subsequently falls
  among earliest age groups
• Age 1971 1979 2002
• 15 14.4 22.5 13.0
• 16 20.9 37.8 26.8
• 17 26.1 48.5 43.1
• 18 39.7 56.9 58.0
• 19 46.4 69.0 70.1

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• Convergence in rates among boys and girls in
  younger age group (15-17)
• Slight decreases for both boys and girls

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• Cohabitation
• Replacement for marriage or part of search?
• Has continued to increase,
• Ends fairly quickly
• (50 end in 1 ½ years)
• (90 end in 5 years)

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• Divorce The dissolution of a household.
• Measuring divorce
• Rate per 1000 people
• Number of marriages eventually resulting in
  divorce

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Exceptional Case Hawaii lots of people coming
to get married. Lowest cases Massachusetts.
Highest Arkansas (Nevada removed)
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• Divorce The dissolution of a household.
• A persistent upward trend in divorce throughout
  the course of this century.
• However a recent slight downturn.

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• Variability in divorce rates
• More educated women, women with higher incomes
  less likely to get divorced
• Age and race/ethnicity

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• Timing of first birth in relation to marriage
  indicates idea of information gap
• Early birth increases probability of divorce no
  birth increases probability of divorce.

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• The process Repeated
• 80 of men remarry after divorce
• 75 of women remarry
• 50 do so within 3 years

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• Starting again
• Can apply some of the same theoretical
  expectations from the previous search to this
  search
• Some unsurprising facts
• Younger women remarry faster
• Women without children remarry faster

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• Are people better informed?
• Not perfect comparison...
• But not much difference.

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• Fertility
• Fertility as a choice
• Why do tastes change?
• How do costs of children change?

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• Fertility
• Until recently, a large factor influencing
  fertility levels was the married
• Growth of fertility outside of married households
• 2000 25.7 million married w/ children
• 2.2 million single men w/ children
• 7.4 million single women with children

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• Back to Fertility
• Why have children?
• Children valued because we have tastes for
  identity, morality, etc.
• But children are costly! Both materially and
  nonmaterially (being tied down)

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• Two types of trends in fertility
• The demographic transition an overall decline in
  fertility.
• The baby boom a short period of increased
  fertility in the United States.

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• The demographic transition
• Describes a long-term transition in fertility and
  mortality rates
• Mortality rates usually dropped first, followed
  by a drop in fertility rates

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• The baby boom
• Large increase in births following WWII
• Generally unexpected

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