Gender Identity and Relative Income within Households-Evidence from Sweden

Karin Hederos and Anders Stenberg
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Karin Hederos: Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University, Postal: SOFI, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
Anders Stenberg: Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University, Postal: SOFI, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden

No 3/2019, Working Paper Series from Stockholm University, Swedish Institute for Social Research

Abstract: Bertrand et al. (2015) show that in the U.S.,the distribution of the wife’s share of household income drops sharply at the point where the wife starts to earn more than her husband. They attribute the drop to a gender identity norm prescribing that a wife’s income should not exceed her husband’s income. We document a similar sharp drop in Swedish administrative register data. However, we also show that there is a large spike in the distribution of the wife’s share of household income at the point where spouses earn exactly the same. The wives in the equal-earning couples do not have higher earnings potential than their husbands, suggesting that the spike is not generated by couples seeking to avoid that the wife earns more than her husband. Excluding the equal-earning couples, the drop is small and mostly statistically insignificant. We conclude that, if anything, we find only weak evidence that Swedish couples comply with a norm against wives earning more than their husbands.

Keywords: Gender roles; gender norms; marriage market; gender gap; gender identity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D10 J12 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2019-06-28
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-gen, nep-hme, nep-lab and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Gender identity and relative income within households: evidence from Sweden (2022)
Working Paper: Gender Identity and Relative Income within Households: Evidence from Sweden (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:sofiwp:2019_003

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