Spousal gaps in age and identity, and their impact on the allocation of housework

Eiji Yamamura () and Yoshiro Tsutsui ()

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This study investigates how spousal age gaps influence the allocation of housework between husbands and wives. Further, we consider the identity formed as a result of respondents’ family backgrounds by specifically exploring the effects of the age gaps between the respondents’ parents. We initially collect an individual-level panel dataset covering the periods before and after marriage, by monthly surveys of unmarried persons in the initial period prior to marriage, then the three-year period that follows. After controlling for individual- and time period-fixed effects, the key findings are as follows: (1) after marriage, women older than their husbands tend to become burdened with a larger amount of housework, and the spousal gap effect increases as the marriage duration increases; (2) women with mothers older than their fathers tend to assume a larger allocation of the housework as the marriage duration increases; and (3) the age gap hardly affects the men’s allocation of housework, although men with a full-time working mother at age 15 assume a larger allocation of housework as the marriage duration increases.

Keywords: Spousal age gaps; housework allocation; intra-household bargaining (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 J12 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-02-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hme and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:92059

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