Housework share between partners: Experimental evidence on gender-specific preferences

TY - JOUR

T1 - Housework share between partners

T2 - Experimental evidence on gender-specific preferences

AU - Nicoletti, Cheti

N1 - © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc.

PY - 2017/8/1

Y1 - 2017/8/1

N2 - This paper uses a novel vignette-based experimental design to investigate the reasons underlying the gendered division of housework. We are particularly interested in the role of gender-specific preferences: are there differences in the utility that men and women derive from housework, and might these be responsible for the fact that women continue to do more housework than men? It is difficult to address these questions with conventional survey data, because of inherent problems with endogeneity and ex-post rationalization; our experimental design circumvents these problems. We find remarkably little evidence of any systematic gender differences in preferences, and a general inclination towards an equal distribution of housework; this suggests that the reasons for the gendered division of housework do not derive from gender differences in preferences, and must lie elsewhere.

AB - This paper uses a novel vignette-based experimental design to investigate the reasons underlying the gendered division of housework. We are particularly interested in the role of gender-specific preferences: are there differences in the utility that men and women derive from housework, and might these be responsible for the fact that women continue to do more housework than men? It is difficult to address these questions with conventional survey data, because of inherent problems with endogeneity and ex-post rationalization; our experimental design circumvents these problems. We find remarkably little evidence of any systematic gender differences in preferences, and a general inclination towards an equal distribution of housework; this suggests that the reasons for the gendered division of housework do not derive from gender differences in preferences, and must lie elsewhere.

U2 - 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2017.01.003

DO - 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2017.01.003

M3 - Article

SN - 0049-089X

VL - 66

SP - 118

EP - 139

JO - Social Science Research

JF - Social Science Research

ER -