Gender differences in housework and earnings: intrahousehold evidence from Latin America

This paper analyzes the intrahousehold allocation of housework and paid work in five Latin American countries. The study of intrahousehold decisions in a region where gender inequality is higher than in the developed world and where a high proportion of women are excluded from paid work is important to disentangle how existing theories for the developed world apply to more unequal contexts. We carry out OLS regressions using harmonized time-use surveys for Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay to consider the relationship between earnings and housework, in the framework of the dependency, gender deviance neutralization, and autonomy hypothesis. We find that in Latin America, female housework decisions are better associated with women´s absolute earnings. The econometric evidence compatible with the dependence hypothesis, or even with compensatory gender display for some countries, tends to disappear when absolute earnings are considered to understand women’s time devoted to household work. The significance that women´s monetary resources have in shaping intra-household decisions in Latin America offers new evidence to incorporate into policy design, highlighting the crucial links between labor market performance and intrahousehold gender equity in the region.