EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Total Work, Gender and Social Norms

Daniel Hamermesh, Michael Burda and Philippe Weil

No 6232, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: Using time-diary data from 25 countries, we demonstrate that there is a negative relationship between real GDP per capita and the female-male difference in total work time per day?the sum of work for pay and work at home. In rich northern countries on four continents there is no difference?men and women do the same amount of total work. This latter fact has been presented before by several sociologists for a few rich countries; but our survey results show that labour economists, macroeconomists, the general public and sociologists are unaware of it and instead believe that women perform more total work. The facts do not arise from gender differences in the price of time (as measured by market wages), as women?s total work is further below men?s where their relative wages are lower. Additional tests using U.S. and German data show that they do not arise from differences in marital bargaining, as gender equality is not associated with marital status; nor do they stem from family norms, since most of the variance in the gender total work difference is due to within-couple differences. We offer a theory of social norms to explain the facts. The social-norm explanation is better able to account for within-education group and within-region gender differences in total work being smaller than inter-group differences. It is consistent with evidence using the World Values Surveys that female total work is relatively greater than men?s where both men and women believe that scarce jobs should be offered to men first.

Keywords: Gender differences; Household production; Paid work; Time use (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 J16 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hrm, nep-lab, nep-ltv and nep-soc
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (72)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP6232 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Working Paper: Total Work, Gender and Social Norms (2007) Downloads
Working Paper: Total Work, Gender and Social Norms (2007) Downloads
Working Paper: Total Work, Gender and Social Norms (2007) Downloads
Working Paper: Total Work, Gender and Social Norms (2007) Downloads
Working Paper: Total Work, Gender and Social Norms (2007) Downloads
Working Paper: Total Work, Gender and Social Norms (2007) Downloads
Working Paper: Total work, gender and social norms (2007) Downloads
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6232

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP6232
orders@cepr.org

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by (repec@cepr.org).

 
Page updated 2024-12-28
Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6232