Economic decision-making by cohabitors: findings regarding income pooling

Anne Winkler

Applied Economics, 1997, vol. 29, issue 8, 1079-1090

Abstract: Cohabitation rates are increasing in the US but little is known about how cohabitors make economic decisions. For instance, do female cohabitors treat their male partner's income as shared household income when choosing hours worked? Does income sharing differ among types of cohabitors? This study investigates whether or not cohabitors pool income by drawing inferences from a generalized model of labour supply. The empirical work uses data from the 1993 Current Population Survey and the 1987 National Survey of Families and Households. These data sets provide evidence that cohabitors, taken as a group, do not pool all income. However, there is also evidence that cohabitors are not homogeneous in their behaviour; income pooling is not rejected for cohabitors in longer-term relationships and for those who have a biological child together.

Date: 1997
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/000368497326471 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:applec:v:29:y:1997:i:8:p:1079-1090

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RAEC20

DOI: 10.1080/000368497326471

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Economics is currently edited by Anita Phillips

More articles in Applied Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().