Spouses as home health workers, childcare workers and cooks: Insights for applied research

This paper presents a model of decision-making in households that produce META-goods such as their children’s human capital, health care of elderly relatives, and good nutrition. The model takes into account two kinds of substitution in production: (1) between producing META-goods at home e.g. by preparing a meal and purchasing goods produced commercially e.g. by eating out and (2) between goods produced at home by oneself and goods produced at home by a spouse or partner. New insights are offered that can help interpret empirical analyses of observed gaps in the following behaviors of individuals living in couple: consumption, labor supply, time spent caring for young children, time spent caring for older relatives, and time spent cooking and cleaning. Existing research has reported gaps in such behaviors, including gender, age, weight, income and education gaps. The model’s emphasis on the importance of household production and the role that spouses and non-marital partners may play in such production leads to the identification of new variables related to marriage markets that could help explain consumption, labor supply, own caregiving or caregiving by partners or spouses. These explanatory variables include sex ratios (and exogenous parameters that influence sex ratios), changes in marriage and divorce laws, and combinations of personal characteristics associated with likelihood of marriage or cohabitation.