Women's investment in career and the household division of labour. Issue 60 (26th December 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Sofer, Catherine; Thibout, Claire
• Is Part Of: Applied economics. Volume 51:Issue 60(2019)
• Page Start: 6535
• Page End: 6557
• Publication Date: 2019-12-26
• Subjects: Time use -- gender -- division of labour -- domestic production -- household decision-making; D13 -- J16 -- J22; Economics -- Periodicals; 330
• DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2019.1644440
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0003-6846

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This paper examines how partners in a couple share domestic work according to the woman's investment in career. Investment is measured relatively to other women or to the partner. While previous studies mainly focused on the influence of wages and earnings, we extend them by considering more dimensions describing the intensity of the woman's attachment to the labour market. We use the 2010 French Time Use survey to estimate a model of household division of labour in dual earner couples. We find that the more women are invested in career, the less domestic work they perform during weekdays, which is partly substituted by their partners but only on weekend days. The sharing of tasks is thus less unequal in those couples. However, women still spend more time than their partners on average performing domestic work, even when the woman outperforms him in career, implying no role reversal in the division of labour.