Culture and household decision making: Native and foreign-born couples' balance of power and labor supply choices in the US

Sonia Oreffice

Working Papers. Serie AD from Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie)

Abstract: This study investigates how spouses’ cultural backgrounds mediate the role of intra-household bargaining in the labor supply decisions of foreign-born and US-native couples, in a collective-household framework. Using data from the 2000 US Census I show that the labor supplies of US-born couples, and of those foreign-born coming from countries with family institutions similar to the US, are significantly related to bargaining power forces such as differences between spouses in age, and non-labor income, controlling for both spouses’ demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. Households whose culture of origin supports strict and unequal gender roles do not exhibit any association of balance of power and their labor supply decisions. This cultural asymmetry suggests that spousal traits are assessed differently across couples within the US, and that how households make use of their outside opportunities and economic and institutional environment may depend on their ethnicities.

Keywords: Culture; Household bargaining power; Labor supply. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D1 J15 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2011-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ivi:wpasad:2011-18

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