IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hum/wpaper/sfb649dp2012-007.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Total Work and Gender: Facts and Possible Explanations

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Burda
  • Daniel S. Hamermesh
  • Philippe Weil

Abstract

Time-diary data from 27 countries show a negative relationship between real GDP per capita and female-male differences in total work time—work for pay and work at home. In rich non-Catholic countries on four continents men and women do about the same average amount of total work. Survey results demonstrate, however, that labor economists, macroeconomists, sociologists and the general public believe that women work more. The widespread average equality does not arise from gender differences in the price of time, from intra-family bargaining or from spousal complementarity. Several theories, including ones based on social norms, might explain these findings and are consistent with cross-national evidence from the World Values Surveys and sets of microeconomic data from Australia and Germany.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Burda & Daniel S. Hamermesh & Philippe Weil, 2012. "Total Work and Gender: Facts and Possible Explanations," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2012-007, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2012-007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://sfb649.wiwi.hu-berlin.de/papers/pdf/SFB649DP2012-007.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Assar Lindbeck & Sten Nyberg & Jörgen W. Weibull, 1999. "Social Norms and Economic Incentives in the Welfare State," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 114(1), pages 1-35.
    2. Daniel S. Hamermesh, 2002. "Timing, togetherness and time windfalls," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 15(4), pages 601-623.
    3. Bertocchi, Graziella, 2011. "The enfranchisement of women and the welfare state," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(4), pages 535-553, May.
    4. Cigno, Alessandro, 2009. "What's the Use of Marriage?," IZA Discussion Papers 4635, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
    5. Jeremy Greenwood & Ananth Seshadri & Mehmet Yorukoglu, 2005. "Engines of Liberation," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 72(1), pages 109-133.
    6. Michael C Burda & Daniel S Hamermesh & Philippe Weil, 2007. "Total Work, Gender and Social Norms," Working Papers hal-00972818, HAL.
    7. Solomon W. Polachek & Jun Xiang, 2009. "The Gender Pay Gap across Countries: A Human Capital Approach," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 227, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    8. Charlene Kalenkoski & David Ribar & Leslie Stratton, 2009. "The influence of wages on parents’ allocations of time to child care and market work in the United Kingdom," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 22(2), pages 399-419, April.
    9. Gershuny, Jonathan, 2000. "Changing Times: Work and Leisure in Postindustrial Society," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198287872.
    10. Matthias Doepke & Michèle Tertilt, 2009. "Women's Liberation: What's in It for Men?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 124(4), pages 1541-1591.
    11. Biddle, Jeff E & Hamermesh, Daniel S, 1990. "Sleep and the Allocation of Time," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 922-943, October.
    12. L. Rachel Ngai & Christopher A. Pissarides, 2008. "Trends in Hours and Economic Growth," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(2), pages 239-256, April.
    13. George J. Borjas, 1992. "Ethnic Capital and Intergenerational Mobility," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 107(1), pages 123-150.
    14. George A. Akerlof, 1980. "A Theory of Social Custom, of which Unemployment may be One Consequence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 94(4), pages 749-775.
    15. Kooreman, P., 2007. "Time, money, peers, and parents : Some data and theories on teenage behavior," Other publications TiSEM 05026f0a-e418-4eb8-a483-7, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    16. Peter Kooreman, 2007. "Time, money, peers, and parents; some data and theories on teenage behavior," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 20(1), pages 9-33, February.
    17. Richard B. Freeman & Ronald Schettkat, 2005. "Marketization of household production and the EU–US gap in work," Economic Policy, CEPR;CES;MSH, vol. 20(41), pages 6-50, January.
    18. Shelly Lundberg & Robert A. Pollak, 1996. "Bargaining and Distribution in Marriage," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 139-158, Fall.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    Keywords

    time use; gender differences; household production; paid work;

    JEL classification:

    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation

    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:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2012-007. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (RDC-Team). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/sohubde.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.