Care for sick children as a proxy for gender equality in the family

Rickard Eriksson and Magnus Nermo ()
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Magnus Nermo: Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University, Postal: SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden

No 1/2008, Working Paper Series from Swedish Institute for Social Research

Abstract: Swedish parents are entitled to government paid benefits to take care of sick children. In this paper we show that the gender distribution of paid care for sick children is a good proxy for the gender division of household work. Using two examples we show that registry data on care for sick children is a useful data source for studies on gender equality. Our first example shows that increased effort at work by one spouse leads to a lower effort in household work for this spouse, and a higher effort at home for the other spouse. Our second example provides some evidence for a procyclical pattern in gender equality.

Keywords: gender equality; time use; household work; unemployment; business cycles (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E32 J12 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-mac
Date: 2008-02-18
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:sofiwp:2008_001

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