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Marriage, Housework and Fairness

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  • Widmalm, Frida

    (Department of Economics)

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    Abstract

    I explore the effects of a preference for fairness in the division of housework between two spouses in two different models of household time allocation. Both in the model with agreeing spouses and the model with noncooperative spouses, such a preference has an equalising effect on the division of labour between the partners. In the noncooperative setting, the wife gets better off and the husband worse off in terms of private consumption. I also argue that both the allocation process and the degree of fairness consideration matter for policy outcomes and discuss three policy measures in relation to these two factors.

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    File URL: http://www.nek.uu.se/pdf/1998wp22.pdf
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    Paper provided by Uppsala University, Department of Economics in its series Working Paper Series with number 1998:22.

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    Length: 39 pages
    Date of creation: 15 Oct 1998
    Date of revision:
    Handle: RePEc:hhs:uunewp:1998_022
    Contact details of provider: Postal:
    Department of Economics, Uppsala University, P. O. Box 513, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden

    Phone: + 46 18 471 25 00
    Fax: + 46 18 471 14 78
    Web page: http://www.nek.uu.se/
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    Keywords: Fairness; housework; unpaid work; household production; household time allocation;

    Find related papers by JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

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