Rethinking Specialisation and the Sexual Division of Labour in the 21st Century

Arbeitspapier

This paper aims to shed new light on explanations for the sexual division of labour, within a broader examination of within-household specialisation. We propose a set of indices which we believe are the first direct within-couple measures of specialisation. We use these to present a rich descriptive profile of specialisation. Absolute advantage in market work has only a small role in behaviour for heterosexual couples, and no role at all for same-sex couples. In contrast, sex-based specialisation is much greater. We consider whether the patterns in the data are consistent with a formal Beckerian model of comparative advantage. A woman would need to be 109 times more productive in market work than her male partner before reaching expected parity in domestic work, and this is likely biased downwards due to endogeneity of relative wages related to earlier time use decisions.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 12977

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Household Production and Intrahousehold Allocation ; Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
• Subject: sexual division of labour ; family economics ; specialisation ; gender ; time use

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Siminski, Peter ; Yetsenga, Rhiannon
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2020

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/215373
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET