Economic inequality and household production: The effects of spezalization of genders

Empirical evidence from several countries has shown that full income including the value of household production is more equally distributed than income earned from market work and unearned income. Trends in income distributions during 1988-2000 indicate an increase in economic inequality in Finland. However, the inclusion of the value of household production for a measure of full income partly reverses this trend. Inequality as measured using full income has actually decreased for women. This is despite the increase in unemployment rate as a consequence of the depression of the early 1990s and the increase in capital income of the highest income decile in the end of 1990s. Household work has the greatest equalizing effect for two-adult households. The specialization of genders allows the substitution of women’s household work for paid market work. In two-adult households, women in the highest income decile do, on average, half as much housework, 21 hours per week, as women belonging to the lowest decile, who work 39 hours per week. Single women in the lowest income decile do significantly less household work, 28 hours per week. In fact, household work has a greater equalizing effect for single men than for single women.