IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbs/wpaper/2011-03.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Work, Inequality, and the Dual Career Household

Author

Listed:
  • Dan Wheatley and Zhongmin Wu

Abstract

Dual career households have the potential to be the most egalitarian of all households. However, while paid work is increasingly distributed evenly between career men and women, household time remains a social constraint for many women. This paper considers the distribution of work among dual career households, using weekly time-use trends, reflecting on the fit of household models and the effectiveness of current work-focused policy. Descriptive analysis, random-effects probit regression, and case households provide an empirical focus on a post-industrial economy - the UK - using the 1993-2009 British Household Panel Survey. Long hours, especially overtime, persist in managerial and professional occupations. Meanwhile, housework burdens women with up to fourteen hours of additional work per week. Preferences for shorter hours remain greater among women, reflecting the impact of household time on paid work. The evidence presented in this paper suggests that the distribution of household labor renders dual career households less than egalitarian.

Suggested Citation

  • Dan Wheatley and Zhongmin Wu, 2011. "Work, Inequality, and the Dual Career Household," NBS Discussion Papers in Economics 2011/03, Economics, Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbs:wpaper:2011/03
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ntu.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/310274/Work-inequality-and-the-dual-career-household.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2011
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Julie A. Nelson, 1995. "Feminism and Economics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 131-148, Spring.
    2. Frederic Vermeulen, 2002. "Collective Household Models: Principles and Main Results," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(4), pages 533-564, September.
    3. Carmen Sirianni & Cynthia Negrey, 2000. "Working Time as Gendered Time," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(1), pages 59-76.
    4. Martha MacDonald & Shelley Phipps & Lynn Lethbridge, 2005. "Taking Its Toll: The Influence Of Paid And Unpaid Work On Women'S Well-Being," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(1), pages 63-94.
    5. Janet A. Seiz, 1995. "Bargaining Models, Feminism, and Institutionalism," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 609-618, June.
    6. Vermeulen, Frederic, 2002. "Collective Household Models: Principles and Main Results," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(4), pages 533-564, September.
    7. Irene van Staveren, 2010. "Post-Keynesianism meets feminist economics," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 34(6), pages 1123-1144.
    8. Grossbard, Shoshana, 2010. "Independent Individual Decision-Makers in Household Models and the New Home Economics," IZA Discussion Papers 5138, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. McDowell, Linda & Perrons, Diane & Fagan, Colette & Ray, Kathryn & Ward, Kevin, 2005. "The contradictions and intersections of class and gender in a global city: placing working women's lives on the research agenda," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 16265, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Linda McDowell & Diane Perrons & Colette Fagan & Kath Ray & Kevin Ward, 2005. "The Contradictions and Intersections of Class and Gender in a Global City: Placing Working Women's Lives on the Research Agenda," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 37(3), pages 441-461, March.
    11. Esping-Andersen, Gosta, 1999. "Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198742005.
    12. Inmaculada García-Mainar & José Alberto Molina & Víctor M. Montuenga, 2011. "Gender Differences in Childcare: Time Allocation in Five European Countries," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1), pages 119-150, January.
    13. McDowell, Linda & Perrons, Diane & Fagan, Colette & Ray, Kath & Ward, Kevin, 2005. "The contradictions and intersections of class and gender in a global city : placing working women's lives on the research agenda," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 548, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    14. Susan Himmelweit, 1995. "The Discovery of 'Unpaid Work': the social consequences of the expansion of 'work'," Open Discussion Papers in Economics 6, The Open University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rob Ackrill and Simeon Coleman, 2012. "Inflation dynamics in central and eastern European countries," NBS Discussion Papers in Economics 2012/01, Economics, Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University.
    2. Robert Mullings & Aruneema Mahabir, 2016. "Growth by Destination: The Role of Trade in Africa’s Recent Growth Episode," NBS Discussion Papers in Economics 2016/01, Economics, Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Daniel Wheatley & Zhongmin Wu, 2014. "Dual careers, time-use and satisfaction levels: evidence from the British Household Panel Survey," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(5), pages 443-464, September.
    2. Wheatley, Daniel, 2014. "Travel-to-work and subjective well-being: A study of UK dual career households," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 187-196.
    3. Diane Perrons & Robin Dunford, 2013. "Regional development, equality and gender: Moving towards more inclusive and socially sustainable measures," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 34(3), pages 483-499, August.
    4. Bruce Philp & Dan Wheatley, 2010. "Time Scarcity and the Dual Career Household: Competing Perspectives," NBS Discussion Papers in Economics 2010/6, Economics, Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University.
    5. Charlotta Hedberg & Tiit Tammaru, 2013. "‘Neighbourhood Effects’ and ‘City Effects’: The Entry of Newly Arrived Immigrants into the Labour Market," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(6), pages 1165-1182, May.
    6. Sabrina Bruyneel & Laurens Cherchye & Bram De Rock, 2012. "Collective consumption models with restricted bargaining weights: an empirical assessment based on experimental data," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 10(3), pages 395-421, September.
    7. Hjorthol, Randi & Vågane, Liva, 2014. "Allocation of tasks, arrangement of working hours and commuting in different Norwegian households," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 75-83.
    8. Jeremy Lise & Shannon Seitz, 2011. "Consumption Inequality and Intra-household Allocations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 78(1), pages 328-355.
    9. San Vicente Portes, Luis & Atal, Vidya & Juárez Torres, Miriam, 2019. "From households to national statistics: Macroeconomic effects of Women's empowerment," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 286-294.
    10. Jara-Díaz, Sergio & Rosales-Salas, Jorge, 2017. "Beyond transport time: A review of time use modeling," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 209-230.
    11. Denis Beninger & François Laisney, 2006. "On the performance of unitary models of household labor supply estimated on “collective” data with taxation," Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, INRA Department of Economics, vol. 81, pages 5-36.
    12. Håkan Selin, 2017. "What happens to the husband’s retirement decision when the wife’s retirement incentives change?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 24(3), pages 432-458, June.
    13. Menon, Martina & Pendakur, Krishna & Perali, Federico, 2012. "On the expenditure-dependence of children’s resource shares," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 739-742.
    14. R. Alessie & T.F. Crossley & V. Hildebrand, 2006. "Estimating a Collective Household Model with Survey Data on Financial Satisfaction," Working Papers 06-07, Utrecht School of Economics.
    15. Alberto Alesina & Andrea Ichino & Loukas Karabarbounis, 2011. "Gender-Based Taxation and the Division of Family Chores," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 1-40, May.
    16. Johnston, David W. & Kassenboehmer, Sonja C. & Shields, Michael A., 2016. "Financial decision-making in the household: Exploring the importance of survey respondent, health, cognitive ability and personality," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 132(PA), pages 42-61.
    17. Wilman J. Iglesias & Alexandre B. Coelho, 2020. "Poverty and inequality within Brazilian households: an application of a collective consumption model," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 58(4), pages 1923-1952, April.
    18. André de Palma & Nathalie Picard & Ignacio Inoa, 2014. "Discrete choice decision-making with multiple decision-makers within the household," Chapters, in: Stephane Hess & Andrew Daly (ed.), Handbook of Choice Modelling, chapter 16, pages 363-382, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Lewbel, Arthur & Lin, Xirong, 2022. "Identification of semiparametric model coefficients, with an application to collective households," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 226(2), pages 205-223.
    20. Juarez Laura, 2010. "The Effect of an Old-Age Demogrant on the Labor Supply and Time Use of the Elderly and Non-Elderly in Mexico," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-27, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Dual career households; time-use; equality; work-time; household time;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbs:wpaper:2011/03. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: King Lim (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ntu.ac.uk/nbs .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.