While more and more married women participate in paid work, men have not equalized the division of labor by appreciably increasing the time they devote to unpaid domestic tasks. The state can assist in managing this double time burden on women by enabling families to externalize a portion of it...

The paper develops an equilibrium search and matching model where two-person families as well as singles participate in the labor market. We show that equilibrium entails wage dispersion among equally productive risk-averse workers. Marital status as well as spousal labor market status matter...