Relative Income and the Intra-household Division of labour: Evidence from a Matched Spousal Panel

Viet Lien Le (), Tu Anh Bui (), Anh Nguyen and Ngoc-Minh Nguyen ()
Additional contact information
Viet Lien Le: Development and Policies Research Center (DEPOCEN), Suite 305 - 307, 12 Trang Thi Street, Hoan Kiem, Hanoi
Tu Anh Bui: Development and Policies Research Center (DEPOCEN), Suite 305 - 307, 12 Trang Thi Street, Hoan Kiem, Hanoi
Ngoc-Minh Nguyen: Development and Policies Research Center (DEPOCEN), Suite 305 - 307, 12 Trang Thi Street, Hoan Kiem, Hanoi

No 196, Working Papers from Development and Policies Research Center (DEPOCEN), Vietnam

Abstract: This paper examines the intra-household allocation of unpaid labour in Vietnam, a rapidly transitioning economy where rising female employment coexists with long-standing traditional norms. Using a unique matched spousal panel (2018–2020), we develop a joint decision-making framework to test whether relative income serves as a structural tool for bargaining. By estimating a Seemingly Unrelated Regressions system, we find that a 10 percentage point increase in the wife’s relative income significantly reduces her domestic burden, matched by a symmetrical increase in the husband’s contribution. Disaggregated results show that economically empowered women use this leverage to substitute away from both routine chores and high-burden caregiving tasks. Crucially, the relationship between relative income and housework remains strictly linear, we find no evidence of gender deviance neutralisation. These findings suggest that intra-household time allocation is fundamentally driven by economic rationality, implying higher earnings for women provide the necessary power to reduce domestic inequality.

Keywords: relative income; intra-household bargaining; joint decision-making model; economic modelling; time allocation; unpaid labour; seemingly unrelated regressions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2025, Revised 2026-06-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gth, nep-lab, nep-sea and nep-tra
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://depocenwp.org/modules/download/index.php?id=196 (application/pdf)

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:dpc:wpaper:0196

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Development and Policies Research Center (DEPOCEN), Vietnam Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Doan Quang Hung ().