The Division of Labour Within Households: Fractional Logit Estimates based on the Austrian Time Use Survey

Spitzer, Sonja and Hammer, Bernhard (2016): The Division of Labour Within Households: Fractional Logit Estimates based on the Austrian Time Use Survey.

Abstract

The allocation of paid and unpaid work within households strongly depends on the household members’ individual characteristics. The most important of these characteristics is gender, followed by education and parenthood. Despite the significant increase in women’s labour market participation in the last decades, they still perform 73 percent of housework and 79 percent of childcare in 2008/09.

This paper studies the determinants of the persistent division of labour within households with a new approach that combines standard absolute measures of time use with the relative measure of time use shares. This approach allows for a better understanding of the division of labour and the influence of the household member’s characteristics on these allocations. The empirical analysis relies on the Austrian time use survey conducted in 1992 and 2008/09. To appropriately account for the complex structure of time use data, the fractional logit model is applied for predicting shares, and a Poisson-gamma model is introduced for estimating total amounts. Hereby, the complex dynamics of task allocation can be studied in Austria for the first time.

The results indicate for the last two decades that there has been an overall increase in the time devoted to market work and childcare, but also that there has been a total decrease in housework. The latter may be explained by an increase in outsourcing work, due to gains in productivity, or because work is simply left undone. The results of the study also show that the higher women are educated, the more balanced paid and unpaid work are within households. On the contrary, parenthood increases female specialisation into unpaid work. Lastly, the results indicate a slight relaxation of gender roles over the last 20 years, however, the segregation of paid and unpaid work still persists.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Division of Labour, Unpaid Work, Female Labour Market Participation, Fractional Logit Model, Poisson-gamma Model, Childcare, Housework, Gender Roles, Time Use
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D1 - Household Behavior and Family Economics > D13 - Household Production and Intrahousehold Allocation

References

Baum, C. (2008). Modeling proportions. Stata Journal, 8(2):299–303.

Baxter, J. (2002). Patterns of change and stability in the gender division of household labour in Australia, 1986-1997. Journal of Sociology, 38(4):399–424.

Baxter, J., Hewitt, B., and Western, M. (2005). Post-Familial Families and the Domestic Division of Labour . Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 36(4):583–600.

Becker, G. S. (1976). The Economic Approach to Human Behavior. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Becker, G. S. (1985). Human Capital, Effort, and the Sexual Division of Labor. Journal of Labor Economics, 3(1):33–58.

Becker, G. S. (1991). A treatise on the family. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, first edition.

Bianchi, S. M., Milkie, M. A., Sayer, L. C., and Robinson, J. P. (2000). Is Anyone Doing the Housework? Trends in Gender Division of Household Labor. Social Forces, 79(1):191–228.

Bittman, M., England, P., Sayer, L., Folbre, N., and Matheson, G. (2003). When Does Gender Trump Money? Bargaining and Time in Household Work. The American Journal of Sociology, 109(1):186–214.

Bittman, M. and Pixley, J. (1997). The Double Life of the Family: Studies in Society Series. Allen and Unwin, Syndey.

Brooks, C. and Bolzendahl, C. (2004). The transformation of US gender role attitudes: cohort replacement, social-strctural change, and ideological learning. Social Science Research, 33:106–133.

Brown, J. E. and Dunn, P. K. (2011). Comparison of Tobit, Linear, and Poisson-Gamma Regression Models: An Application of Time Use Data. Sociological Methods and Research, 40(3):511–535.

Cabrera, N. J., Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., Bradley, R. H., Hofferth, S., and Lamb, M. E. (2000). Fatherhood in the twenty-first century. Child Development, 71:127–136.

Cardoso, A. R., Fontainha, E., and Monfardini, C. (2010). Children’s and parents’ time use: empirical evidence on investment in human capital in France, Germany and Italy. Review of Economics of the Household, 8:479–504.

Craig, L. (2006a). Does Father Care Means Fathers Share?: A Comparison of How Mothers and Fathers in Intact Families Spend Time with Children. Gender Society, 259(20):259–281.

Craig, L. (2006b). Parental education, time in paid work and time with children: an Australian time-diary analysis. The British Journal of Sociology, 57(4):553–575.

Craig, L. and Mullan, K. (2011). How Mothers and Fathers Share Childcare: A Cross-National Time-Use Comparison. American Sociological Review, 76(6):834–861.

De Laat, J. and Sevilla-Sanz, A. (2011). The Feritlity and Women’s Labor Force Participation puzzle in OECD Countries: The Role of Men’s Home Production. Feminist Economics, 17(2):87–119.

Deding, M. and Lausten, M. (2006). Choosing between His Time and Her Time: Paid and Unpaid Work of Danish Couples. electronic International Journal of Time Use Research, 3:28–48.

Dunn, P. K. and Smyth, G. K. (2005). Series evaluation of Tweedie exponential dispersion model densities. Statistics and Computing, 15:267–280.

Gardner, W., Mulvey, E. P., and Shaw, E. C. (1995). Regression analyses of counts and rates: Poisson, overdispersed Poisson, and negative binomial models. Psychological Bulletin, 118(3):392–404.

Greenwood, J., Gunder, N., Kocharkov, G., and Santos, C. (2014). Marry Your Like: Assortative Mating and Income Inequality. American Economic Review, 105(5):348–353.

Haberkern, K. (2007). Zeitverwendung und Arbeitsteilung in Paarhaushalten. Zeitschrift für Familienforschung, 19(2).

Hammer, B. (2012). Statistical models for time use data: An application to housework and childcare activities using the austrian time use surveys from 2008 and 1992. Master’s thesis, Universtität Wien.

Hardin, J. W. and Hilbe, J. M. (2007). Generalized Linear Models and Extenstions. Stata Press, College Station, second edition.

Harris, K. M., Furstenberg, F. F., and Marmer, J. K. (1998). Paternal involvment with adolescents in intact families: The influence of fathers over the live course. Demography, 35:201–216.

Kitterød, R. H. and Lappegård, T. (2010). A typology of work-family arrangements among dual-earner couples in norway. Technical Report 636, Statistics Norway.

Klaus, D. and Steinbach, A. (2002). Determinanten innerfamilialer Arbeitsteilung: Eine Betrachtung im Längsschnitt. Zeitschrif für Familienforschung, 14(1):21–43.

Lachance-Grzela, M. and Geneviève, B. (2010). Why Do Women Do the Lion’s Share of Housework? A Decade of Research. Sex Roles, 63:767–780.

McCullagh, P. and Nelder, J. A. (1989). Generalized Linear Models. Chapman and Hall, London, second edition.

Mullahy, J. (2010). Multivariate Fractional Regression Estimation of Econometric Share Models. Technical report, National Bureau of Economic Research. Working Paper Series Number 16354.

Nettle, D. (2008). Why do some dads get more involved than others? Evidence from a large British cohort. Evolution and Human Behavior, 29(6):416–423.

OECD (2011). Employment rates by age group. In: OECD Factbook 2011-2012: Economic, Environmental and Social Statistics. Technical report. OECD Publishing.

Papke, L. E. and Wooldridge, J. M. (1996). Econometric Methods for Fractional Response Variables with an Application to 401(K) Plan Participation Rates. Journal of Applied Econometrics, 11:619–632.

Pasteels, J. (2012). ILO Projections of the Economically Active Population: Revised Methodology of the 2011 Edition. Technical report, ILO.

Petreski, M. and Blazevski Mojsoska, N. (2015). The gender and motherhood wage gap in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia: An econometric analysis. Technical report, ILO. Working Paper No.6/2015.

Ramalho, E. A. and Ramalho, J. J. (2011). Alternative Estimating and Testing Empirical Strategies for Fractional Regression Models. Journal of Economic Surveys, 25(1):19–68.

Ravanera, Z. and Beaujot, R. (2009). Models of Earning and Caring: Determinants of the Division of Work. Canadian Review of Sociology, 46(4):319–337.

Sayer, L., Casper, L., and Cohen, P. (2004). In: The American People: Census 2000, chapter Women, Men, and Work. Editors: Farley, R., and Haaga, J., pages 76–106. Russell Sage Foundation, New York.

Sevilla-Sanz, A., Gimenez-Nadal, J. I., and Fernándes, C. (2010). Gender Roles and the Division of Unpaid Work in Spanish Households. Feminist Economics, 16(4):137–184.

Statistik Austria (1992a). Allgemeine Hinweise (Documentation Time Use Survey 1992). Technical report.

Statistik Austria (1992b). Tagebuch Muster (Documentation Time Use Survey 1992). Technical report.

Statistik Austria (2009). Zeitverwendung 2008/2009: Ein Überblick über geschlechtsspezifische Unterschiede. Endbericht der Bundesanstalt Statistik Österreich an die Bundesministerin für Frauen und Öffentlichen Dienst. Technical report.

Statistik Austria (2011). Standard-Dokumentationen Metainformation (Definitionen, Erläuterungen, Methoden, Qualität) zur Zeitverwendungserhebung 2008/09 (Documentation Time Use Survey). Technical report.

Statistik Austria (2015). Microcensus - Arbeitskräfteerhebung. http://www.statistik.at/web_d /statistiken/menschen_und_gesellschaft/ soziales/gender statistik/erwerbstaetigkeit/index.html. Accessed: 09/06/16.

Statistik Austria (2016). Erwerbsstatus. http://www.statistik.at/web_de/ statistiken/menschen_und_gesellschaft/arbeitsmark /erwerbsstatus/index.html. Accessed: 11/07/16.

Universität Innsbruck (2016). Online Lehrbuch Zivilrecht: Die natürliche Person. https://www.uibk.ac.at/zivilrecht/buch/kap4_0.xml?section=1;section-view=true. Accessed: 06/06/16.

Wooldridge, J. M. (2009). Introductory Econometrics: A Modern Approach. South-Western CENGAGE Learning, Toronto, fourth edition.