The emergence of the housewife in the Netherlands over the period 1812-1922 was strongly influenced by the social norm that women should withdraw from the labour market on the eve of marriage. Adherence to this norm is most clearly reflected in the emergence of the housewife among the lower...

In this paper we focus on the timing of marriages of women, whose marriages are associated with bride wealth payments, which are transfers from (the family of) the groom to the bride's family. Unmarried daughters could therefore be considered assets who, at times of need, can be cashed in. We...

If partners derive utility from joint leisure time, it is expected that they will coordinate their work schedules in order to increase the amount of joint leisure. In order to control for differences in constraints and selection effects, this paper uses a new matching procedure, providing...

This study examines if couples time their work hours and how this work timing influences child care demand and the time that spouses jointly spend on leisure, household chores and child care. By using a innovative matching strategy, this studies identifies the timing of work hours that cannot be...

This paper explores the interaction between retirement flexibility and portfolio choice in an overlapping-generations model of a closed economy. Retirement flexibility is often seen as a hedge against capital market risks which justifies more risky asset portfolios. We show, however, that this...

The number of households with two or more cars is steadily increasing over time. The reason is that ownership of a single car imposes restrictions on car use when there are multiple license holders in a household. If such restrictions are severe, the benefits of multiple-car ownership may exceed...

We present an equilibrium-search model with heterogenous workers who search for a job in one of two sectors and who lose part of their skills during unemployment. We show that an import tariff increase the wage and the employment prospects in the protected sector. This results in a labor market...

What determines remittances – altruism or enlightened self-interest - and do remittances trigger additional migration? These two questions are examined empirically in Egypt, Turkey and Morocco for households with family members living abroad. Results show, first, that one cannot clearly...

This paper replicates Costa and Kahn's analysis of locational choices of couples of highly educated persons for the Netherlands. We find increasing concentration of such power couples in the urbanized western part of the country. This trend occurs in spite of the absence of an urban wage premium...

Although the number of immigrant households in the Netherlands is substantial, the labor supply choices of this group are usually neglected in empirical studies because these households are usually under-sampled. We use a stratified sample of Turkish, Surinamese/Antillean and Dutch households...