In this paper we compare gender differences in the allocation of time to market work, domestic work, child care, and leisure over the life cycle. Time use profiles for these activity categories are constructed on survey data for three countries: Australia, the UK and Germany. We discuss the...

We show that in the US, the UK, Italy and Sweden women whose first child is a boy are less likely to work in a typical week and work fewer hours than women with first-born girls. The puzzle is why women in these countries react in this way to the sex of their first child, which is chosen...

This paper aims to shed new light on explanations for the sexual division of labour, within a broader examination of within-household specialisation. We propose a set of indices which we believe are the first direct within-couple measures of specialisation. We use these to present a rich...

During the transition toward a market economy, Russian workers have had to face important structural changes in the labour market as well as dramatic changes in their real earnings. In the process, the wage gap between men and women has varied wildly over that period. In recent years, young...

While a large body of literature focuses on how fertility affects female labour market participation, there are relatively few studies that examine the effect of fertility on male labour market participation. Even if the burden of child care falls mainly on women, an exogenous increase in...

Parents in the labor force have balance their work and home life, including the choice of the type of care to provide for their children while they work. In this paper we study the connection between the married women's labor force participation, child care arrangements and the time that...

Using German panel data from 1984 to 2007, we analyze the impact of labor division between husband and wife on the risk of divorce. Gary Becker's theory of marriage predicts that specialization in domestic and market work, respectively, reduces the risk of separation. Traditionally, the...

This paper presents a model of lifetime utility maximisation in which expectations of future marital transitions play a role in the determination of work hours. Married people with spouses who earn more are predicted to devote additional time to the labour market when they are confronted with a...

"We evaluate the effects of the transition from cohabitation to marriage on household domestic and market work hours using a sample of working couples. For this purpose we use the 21 first waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSEOP). We adapt to system GMM estimation the estimator presented...

The increase in female employment and participation rates is one of the most dramatic economic changes to have taken place during the last century. However, while the employment rate of married women more than doubled during the last fifty years, that of unmarried women remained almost constant....