Service was one of the main characteristics of the European Marriage Pattern in pre-industrial western Europe. During this stage of the life cycle adolescents could acquire the material assets and skills that were required to marry and start an independent household. Whilst in service, servants...

Research on child custody primarily focuses on the well-being of children following divorce. We extend this literature by examining how the prospect of joint child custody affects marriage-specific investment in children’s private-school education. Variation in the timing of joint-custody...

The ability of households to diversify their income sources is strongly related to their capacity to cope in times of pressure, such as during economic crises. This is particularly so among the poor, who often do not have adequate resources on which to draw when under such pressures. Households...

In sub-Saharan Africa, 60 % of child deaths are preventable by investments in child health as simple as immunizations, bed nets, or water purification. This article investigates how a household’s decisions regarding such investments are affected by the size and gender composition of a...

The dynamics of multiple time use in paid work and in household activities with housework, child rearing and DIY of married women are analyzed with a two step procedure: the estimation of the participation decision in intertemporal labor force participation strategies (entering, leaving the...

This study on market and non-market labor supply and taxes is based on a theoretical microeconomic model with multiple labor supply in the formal and informal economy. This multiple time allocation model, which explicitly takes into account taxes, transfer payments, socioeconomic characteristics...

The effects of social transfers on individual participation and working hours are theoretically shown to differ for unitary and bargaining intrahousehold allocation models. This result is attributed to both the non-transferability of in-kind social transfers and differences in control of these...

In less developed countries like Peru, it is very frequent to observe that, in poor households, parents and children work together doing household work in their own home. This fact is even more evident among girls, who work at home cleaning, cooking, taking care of younger siblings, etc., which...

We control for demographic changes to document trends in the allocation of time using time diary data for Canada (1986 to 2005) and the United States (1985 to 2005). We find that (1) in 2005, average weekly hours spent on market work is higher in Canada than in the U.S. (37.29 vs. 33.29) , (2)...

Traditionally we have studied the problem of child labor as the counterpart of school attendance. However, most studies have ignored the potential importance of household work performed by children at home. Given that children from certain age may perform these activities, and because child...