Automation and the fall and rise of the servant economy

Astrid Krenz and Holger Strulik

European Economic Review, 2025, vol. 172, issue C

Abstract: We develop a macroeconomic theory of the division of household tasks between servants and own work and how it is affected by automation in households and firms. We calibrate the model for the U.S. and apply it to explain the historical development of household time use and the distribution of household tasks from 1900 to 2020. The economy is populated by high-skilled and low-skilled households and household tasks are performed by own work, machines, or servants. For the period 1900–1960, innovations in household automation motivate the decline of the servant economy and the creation of new household tasks motivates an almost constant division of household time between wage work and domestic work. For the period 1960–2020, innovations in firm automation and the implied increase of the skill premium explain the return of the servant economy. We use counterfactual historical experiments to assess the role of automation, the creation of new household tasks, and the gig economy for the division of household time and tasks. We provide supporting evidence for the relation between automation and inequality, and for inequality as a driver of the return of the servant economy in a regional panel of U.S. metropolitan statistical areas for the period 2005–2020.

Keywords: Automation; Home production; Inequality; Servants; Maids; Gig economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 E24 J22 J24 O11 O30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Related works:
Working Paper: Automation and the fall and rise of the servant economy (2025)
Working Paper: Automation and the fall and rise of the servant economy (2022)
Working Paper: Automation and the Fall and Rise of the Servant Economy (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:172:y:2025:i:c:s0014292124002551

DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104926

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