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Her Time, His Time, or the Maid's Time: An Analysis of the Demand for Domestic Work

Author

Listed:
  • Stancanelli, Elena G. F.

    (Paris School of Economics)

  • Stratton, Leslie S.

    (Virginia Commonwealth University)

Abstract

This paper analyzes households' demand for time inputs to domestic services, modeling simultaneously the decision to purchase services in the market and the time spent on weekend and weekday days by each partner on routine household chores. By focusing on cleaning, laundry, and ironing, we reduce the likelihood that preferences matter and increase the overlap with market services. Particular emphasis is placed on estimating the effects of prices, as captured by own and partner wages and the market price for domestic services. We exploit time-diary data for Great Britain and France, relying on cross-country comparisons to generalize our findings. The results indicate that prices strongly influence market purchases, and that maid service is a closer substitute for household time on weekends than weekdays, but is also correlated with 'her' weekday time. More generally, we find that women's wages have a stronger association with the inputs to domestic work than any other price measure.

Suggested Citation

  • Stancanelli, Elena G. F. & Stratton, Leslie S., 2010. "Her Time, His Time, or the Maid's Time: An Analysis of the Demand for Domestic Work," IZA Discussion Papers 5253, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5253
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jens Bonke & Mette Deding & Mette Lausten & Leslie S. Stratton, 2008. "Intra‐Household Specialization in Housework in the United States and Denmark," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 89(4), pages 1023-1043, December.
    2. Hans Bloemen & Elena Stancanelli, 2008. "How Do Parents Allocate Time? The Effects of Wages and Income," Working Papers hal-01066183, HAL.
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    9. Rachel Connelly & Jean Kimmel, 2009. "Spousal influences on parents’ non-market time choices," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 7(4), pages 361-394, December.
    10. Janeen Baxter & Belinda Hewitt & Mark Western, 2009. "Who Uses Paid Domestic Labor in Australia? Choice and Constraint in Hiring Household Help," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(1), pages 1-26.
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    12. Suen, W., 1995. "Market-procured housework: The demand for domestic servants and female labor supply," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 105-105, March.
    13. Sanjiv Gupta & Michael Ash, 2008. "Whose money, whose time? A nonparametric approach to modeling time spent on housework in the United States," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(1), pages 93-120.
    14. Daniel S. Hamermesh, 2007. "Time to Eat: Household Production under Increasing Income Inequality," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 89(4), pages 852-863.
    15. Alfonso Sousa-Poza & Hans Schmid & Rolf Widmer, 2001. "The allocation and value of time assigned to housework and child-care: An analysis for Switzerland," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 14(4), pages 599-618.
    16. Hans G. Bloemen & Elena G. F. Stancanelli, 2008. "How do spouses allocate time : the effects of wages and income," THEMA Working Papers 2008-40, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    17. Robert A. Pollak, 2005. "Bargaining Power in Marriage: Earnings, Wage Rates and Household Production," NBER Working Papers 11239, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Stewart, Jay, 2013. "Tobit or not Tobit?," Journal of Economic and Social Measurement, IOS Press, issue 3, pages 263-290.
    19. David Roodman, 2009. "Mixed-process models with cmp," DC09 Stata Conference 11, Stata Users Group.
    20. David Roodman, 2009. "Estimating Fully Observed Recursive Mixed-Process Models with cmp," Working Papers 168, Center for Global Development.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Kabátek, Jan & van Soest, Arthur & Stancanelli, Elena, 2014. "Income taxation, labour supply and housework: A discrete choice model for French couples," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 30-43.
    2. François-Xavier Devetter, 2016. "Can Public Policies Bring about the Democratization of the Outsourcing of Household Tasks?," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 48(3), pages 365-393, September.
    3. Krenz, Astrid & Strulik, Holger, 2022. "Automation and the Fall and Rise of the Servant Economy," VfS Annual Conference 2022 (Basel): Big Data in Economics 264034, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    4. Ali Fakih, 2014. "Vacation Leave, Work Hours, and Wages: New Evidence from Linked Employer–Employee Data," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 28(4), pages 376-398, December.
    5. Fakih, Ali & Marrouch, Walid, 2012. "Determinants of Domestic Workers' Employment: Evidence from Lebanese Household Survey Data," IZA Discussion Papers 6822, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Ali Fakih & Walid Marrouch, 2014. "Who hires foreign domestic workers? evidence from Lebanon," Journal of Developing Areas, Tennessee State University, College of Business, vol. 48(3), pages 339-352, July-Sept.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    time use; domestic work; gender;
    All these keywords.

    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

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