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How Does Household Production Affect Earnings Inequality?: Evidence from the American Time Use Survey

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  • Harley Frazis
  • Jay Stewart

Abstract

Although income inequality has been studied extensively, relatively little attention has been paid to the role of household production. Economic theory predicts that households with less money income will produce more goods at home. Thus extended income, which includes the value of household production, should be more equally distributed than money income. We find this to be true, but not for the reason predicted by theory. Virtually all of the decline in measured inequality, when moving from money income to extended income, is due to the addition of a large constant--the average value of household production--to money income. This result is robust to alternative assumptions that one might make when estimating the value of household production.

Suggested Citation

  • Harley Frazis & Jay Stewart, 2006. "How Does Household Production Affect Earnings Inequality?: Evidence from the American Time Use Survey," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_454, Levy Economics Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_454
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    Cited by:

    1. Yanliang Yang & George C Davis & Wen You, 2019. "Measuring Food Expenditure Poverty in SNAP Populations: Some Extensions with an Application to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(1), pages 133-152, March.
    2. Frick, Joachim R. & Grabka, Markus M. & Groh-Samberg, Olaf, 2012. "The Impact of Home Production on Economic Inequality in Germany," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 43(3), pages 1143-1169.
    3. Tamar Khitarishvili & Kijong Kim, 2015. "The great recession and unpaid work time in the United States - Does poverty matter?," electronic International Journal of Time Use Research, Research Institute on Professions (Forschungsinstitut Freie Berufe (FFB)) and The International Association for Time Use Research (IATUR), vol. 12(1), pages 19-48, December.
    4. Cathleen Zick & W. Bryant & Sivithee Srisukhumbowornchai, 2008. "Does housework matter anymore? The shifting impact of housework on economic inequality," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 6(1), pages 1-28, March.

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