Behavioral Economics Workshop: Corinne Low
Tuesday, October 24, 2023 11:40am to 1:10pm
About this Event
7 East Ave, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA
Corinne Low, University of Pennsylvania
Winning the Bread and Baking it Too: Inefficiencies in the Allocation of Home Production
We document the puzzling stylized fact that women in heterosexual relationships spend more time on home production than their partners even when they are the primary breadwinner. While the omnipresence of women in household tasks is often explained through biological factors, we show this is actually driven by "housework" tasks like cooking and cleaning where women's advantage is less clear. We test whether differential productivity alone could explain these patterns in a comparative advantage model. We use a collective model with differential time costs of housework, which predicts that when men and women join into a household, they make "trades" that may result in her housework time going up and his time going down, but generating total cost reductions. Upon exiting this "open economy," her housework time would return to its "no trade" value. We use panel data from the PSID, in the US, and HILDA, in Australia, to test this prediction, and find in an event study that men's time on housework goes down upon marriage and up upon divorce, whereas women's goes up in marriage and down in divorce. Thus, comparative advantage, potentially socially driven, may play a role. However, we show additional stylized facts that are inconsistent with the efficient allocation of tasks within the household, even if women have a large productivity advantage, such as that men's housework time does not respond to relative wages, and total wage-weighted housework costs are higher in marriage. We then compare to same-sex couples to document two channels through which heterosexual couples deviate from efficiency: men being "overly attached" to the labor force, and men doing insufficient housework when they do become unemployed.
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While we strongly encourage in-person attendance in 165 Statler Hall, a remote attendance option will also be available. If you are interested in participating remotely, please register at:
https://cornell.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcrf-isrzMvGNLqY1p7d-7Wyg6FzGlfYI7I
Note: Registration is limited to the Cornell community
Note: If you have previously registered for the Fall 2023 Behavioral Economics Workshop, there is no need to re-register—you will use the same link for the entire semester (see your confirmation email).
Note: The BEDR Workshop and the Behavioral Economics Workshop use separate links; hence, you still must register for the Behavioral Economics Workshop even if you have already registered for the BEDR Workshop.
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