Women's relative position and the division of household work: A study of French couples

Catherine Sofer (1, 2) , Sayyid Salman Rizavi (1)

1 CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne
2 PSE - Paris School of Economics

This paper studies the effect of women's relative position in the labour market on the division of household work for French couples. Taking into account that household decisions are taken simultaneously, the paper provides empirical evidence that women's relative position in the labour market with reference to her partner influences the distribution of household work. We find that men's share of household work increases with his partner's better relative position in the labour market. But women's better position, relative to the average of her "type" has a less significant impact upon the distribution of household work within the household. Although the gap in household work decreases with the woman being in a better relative position, we never observe a role reversal: whatever their situation in the labour market may be, women always have in charge the largest share of household work.

Domaines: Microstructure des marchés [q-fin.TR]

Catherine Sofer, Sayyid Salman Rizavi. Women's relative position and the division of household work: A study of French couples. European Journal of Social Systems, 2009, 22 (2), pp.13-26. ⟨hal-00687280⟩