IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eej/eeconj/v32y2006i2p299-312.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Sexual Division of Labor Within Households: Comparisons of Couples to Roommates

Author

Listed:
  • Christopher A. Jepsen

    (Public Policy Institute of California)

  • Lisa K. Jepsen

    (Department of Economics, University of Northern Iowa)

Abstract

We compare cohabiting couples to roommates to see if couples specialize by allocating the time of one person to the labor market and the other to the home. Roommates are an interesting comparison group. Like couples, they live together. Unlike couples, they have no incentives to specialize. We study same-sex couples because, by definition, they are unable to specialize by gender. All couples, however, have incentives to pool household resources. We find that, with respect to earnings, couples specialize and roommates do not. With respect to hours worked, however, same-sex couples are indistinguishable from male and female roommates.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher A. Jepsen & Lisa K. Jepsen, 2006. "The Sexual Division of Labor Within Households: Comparisons of Couples to Roommates," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 32(2), pages 299-312, Spring.
    • Handle: RePEc:eej:eeconj:v:32:y:2006:i:2:p:299-312
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://web.holycross.edu/RePEc/eej/Archive/Volume32/V32N2P299_312.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nakosteen, Robert A & Zimmer, Michael A, 2001. "Spouse Selection and Earnings: Evidence of Marital Sorting," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 39(2), pages 201-213, April.
    2. Theodore W. Schultz, 1974. "Economics of the Family: Marriage, Children, and Human Capital," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number schu74-1.
    3. Dan Black & Gary Gates & Seth Sanders & Lowell Taylor, 2000. "Demographics of the gay and lesbian population in the United States: Evidence from available systematic data sources," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 37(2), pages 139-154, May.
    4. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "A Theory of Marriage," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of the Family: Marriage, Children, and Human Capital, pages 299-351, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Suen, Wing & Lui, Hon-Kwong, 1999. "A Direct Test of the Efficient Marriage Market Hypothesis," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 37(1), pages 29-46, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rebecca DiBennardo & Gary Gates, 2014. "Research Note: US Census Same-Sex Couple Data: Adjustments to Reduce Measurement Error and Empirical Implications," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 33(4), pages 603-614, August.
    2. Benjamin Cerf, 2016. "Sexual Orientation, Income, and Stress at Work," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(4), pages 546-575, October.
    3. Christopher Jepsen & Lisa K. Jepsen, 2017. "Self-employment, earnings, and sexual orientation," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 287-305, March.
    4. Oreffice, Sonia, 2011. "Sexual orientation and household decision making.: Same-sex couples' balance of power and labor supply choices," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 145-158, April.
    5. Jepsen, Christopher & Jepsen, Lisa K., 2009. "Does home ownership vary by sexual orientation?," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 307-315, May.
    6. Hofmarcher, Thomas & Plug, Erik, 2022. "Specialization in same-sex and different-sex couples," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    7. Negrusa, Brighita & Oreffice, Sonia, 2010. "Sexual Orientation and Household Savings: Do Homosexual Couples Save More?," IZA Discussion Papers 4961, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Dilmaghani, Maryam & Dean, Jason, 2020. "Sexual orientation and homeownership in Canada," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    9. Karaarslan, Can, 2021. "Differences in Unemployment due to Sexual Orientation: Evidence from the Swedish Labour Market," Working Papers for Marketing & Management 52, Offenburg University, Department of Media and Information.
    10. Madeline Zavodny, 2008. "Is there a ‘marriage premium’ for gay men?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 6(4), pages 369-389, December.
    11. Lisa Giddings & John Nunley & Alyssa Schneebaum & Joachim Zietz, 2014. "Birth Cohort and the Specialization Gap Between Same-Sex and Different-Sex Couples," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(2), pages 509-534, April.
    12. Maryam Dilmaghani, 2018. "Sexual Orientation, Labour Earnings, and Household Income in Canada," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 39(1), pages 41-55, March.
    13. Maryam Dilmaghani, 2019. "Sexual orientation and the ‘cohabitation gap’ in life satisfaction in Canada," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 1163-1189, December.
    14. John Graham & Jason Barr, 2008. "Assessing the geographic distribution of same sex and opposite sex couples across the United States: implications for claims of causality between traditional marriage and same sex unions," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 6(4), pages 347-367, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lisa Jepsen & Christopher Jepsen, 2002. "An empirical analysis of the matching patterns of same-sex and opposite-sex couples," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 39(3), pages 435-453, August.
    2. Lisa K. Jepsen & Christopher A. Jepsen, "undated". "An Empirical Analysis of Same-Sex and Opposite-Sex Couples: Do "Likes" Still Like "Likes" in the '90s?," IPR working papers 99-5, Institute for Policy Resarch at Northwestern University.
    3. repec:kap:iaecre:v:14:y:2008:i:4:p:448-459 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Sonia Dalmia & Paul Sicilian, 2008. "Kids Cause Specialization: Evidence for Becker’s Household Division of Labor Hypothesis," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 14(4), pages 448-459, November.
    5. Koji Yasuda & Tomoko Kinugasa & Shigeyuki Hamori, 2019. "An Empirical Analysis Of Marital Status In Japan," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 64(03), pages 773-798, June.
    6. Steven F. Koch, 2005. "Love and Addiction: The Importance of Commitment," Working Papers 200516, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    7. Filoso, Valerio & Papagni, Erasmo, 2015. "Fertility choice and financial development," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 160-177.
    8. Thomas Cooke & Paul Boyle & Kenneth Couch & Peteke Feijten, 2009. "A longitudinal analysis of family migration and the gender gap in earnings in the united states and great britain," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 46(1), pages 147-167, February.
    9. Solomon Polachek, 2003. "Mincer's Overtaking Point and the Life Cycle Earnings Distribution," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 1(4), pages 273-304, December.
    10. Olga Nottmeyer, 2014. "Relative labor supply in intermarriage," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 3(1), pages 1-27, December.
    11. Harris, Matthew C. & Cronin, Christopher J., 2017. "The effects of prospective mate quality on investments in healthy body weight among single women," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 164-183.
    12. Fisher, James C.D. & Hafalir, Isa E., 2016. "Matching with aggregate externalities," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 1-7.
    13. Levin, Mark (Левин, Марк) & Matrosova, Ksenia (Матросова, Ксения), 2018. "Development and Research of Economic Behavior of Households in Changing Conditions [Разработка И Исследование Экономического Поведения Домохозяйств В Изменяющихся Условиях]," Working Papers 041825, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.
    14. Alicia H. Munnell & Geoffrey Sanzenbacher & Alice Zulkarnain, 2020. "What Factors Explain the Decline in Widowed Women’s Poverty?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(5), pages 1881-1902, October.
    15. Sandhya R. Mahapatro, 2018. "Impact of Labour Migration on Socioeconomic Position of Left-Behind Women in Bihar," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 61(4), pages 701-718, December.
    16. Gideon Vigderhous & Gideon Fishman, 1978. "Social indicators of marital instability, U.S.A., 1920–1969," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 325-344, March.
    17. Shawn Grover & John F. Helliwell, 2019. "How’s Life at Home? New Evidence on Marriage and the Set Point for Happiness," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 373-390, February.
    18. Madeline Zavodny, 2008. "Is there a ‘marriage premium’ for gay men?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 6(4), pages 369-389, December.
    19. Kouladoum, Jean-Claude, 2019. "Décision du mariage des ménages tchadiens et Caractéristiques socio-économiques [Marriage decision of Chadian households and socio-economic characteristics]," MPRA Paper 91590, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Gangadharan, L. & Maitra, P., 2000. "The Effect of Education on the Timing of Marriage and First Conception in Pakistan," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 742, The University of Melbourne.
    21. Joan Gil Trasfí, 2016. "Is marriage protecting your health in recession times?," UB School of Economics Working Papers 2016/343, University of Barcelona School of Economics.

    More about this item

    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:eej:eeconj:v:32:y:2006:i:2:p:299-312. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 bibliographic 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.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Victor Matheson, College of the Holy Cross (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eeaa1ea.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.