Shoshana Grossbard

How 'Chicagoan' are Gary Becker's Economic Models of Marriage?

This paper describes Gary Becker’s theoretical models of marriage. At the micro level, these are all rational choice models. At the market level, Becker offers two major types of models: partial equilibrium models based on price theory as taught by Marshall and Friedman; and optimal sorting models based on optimal assignment models. This paper examines some of the possible intellectual influences on Becker’s theory of marriage, compares Becker’s research on marriage with that of some scholars interested in intra-marriage distribution, and documents that Becker’s students at Chicago were more interested in Becker’s Friedmanian models of marriage than in his optimal assignment models.

Racial Intermarriage and Household Production

In the United States do hours of household work vary by whether individuals are in different-race or same-race couples? American Time Use Survey data for years 2003-2009 are analyzed for samples of white and black male and female respondents. We find that white women married to black men devote 0.4 fewer hours per day to chores than their counterparts in all-white marriages, which is comparable to the effect of a child on their hours of chores. Findings for white men also indicate that they work less at housework when in couple with black women than when in all-white couples. Conversely, blacks appear to do more chores if they are in couple with whites than when in all-black couples. Results are sensitive to whether time use was measured on weekdays or weekends, couples were married or not, employment status, and alternative definitions of black. Racial intermarriage differentials in hours of household work seem to be more prevalent among the U.S.-born than the foreign-born.

Women's Labor Supply, Marriage, and Welfare Dependency

This paper provides a rational choice model that simultaneously analyses womens decisions about welfare dependency, labor supply, and marriage. The model is based on the Demand and Supply (D&S) models of marriage inspired by Beckers theory of marriage. In addition to reproducing old insights about income effects and marriage market effects on welfare dependency, the model offers new insights regarding the effects on welfare dependency of sex ratios, divorce laws, cohort size, and traditional expectations about marriage and family. The model helps understand why welfare is more common among black women in the USA and offers a new interpretation for past trends in American womens welfare dependency: the big increase in welfare dependency in the late 1960s is interpreted as a baby-boom phenomenon and recent reductions in welfare dependency are partially seen as the expression of young womens better marriage market opportunities.

Time Costs of Children as Parents' Foregone Leisure

From the 1998–99 French Insee time use survey, the time cost of children is estimated in terms of hours of foregone leisure. The focus on couples with two spouses working full time implies no need to be concerned about substitution between home production and labor supply. The model accounts for selection into full-time employment, endogenous wages, and controls for outside help with home production and child care. The foregone leisure cost per child under the age of 3 is 1.6 hours for each parent. It is about half that size for children aged 3 to 14. Children over age 14 involve no leisure cost to parents.

Common Law Marriage, Labor Supply, and Time Use: A Partial Explanation for Gender Convergence in Labor Supply☆☆We thank the editors, two anonymous referees, and participants at an IZA workshop on gender convergence for helpful suggestions.

Abstract Using micro data from CPS for the period 1995–2011 we investigate effects of Common Law Marriage (CLM) on labor outcomes and using the ATUS for the period 2003–2011 we study its effects on household production and leisure. Identification of CLM effects arises through cross-state variation and variation over time, as three states abolished CLM over the period examined in the CPS data. Labor supply effects of CLM availability are negative for married women: for instance, weekly hours of work are reduced by 1–2 hours. In addition, some CLM effects on married men’s labor supply are positive. Consequently, the abolition of CLM in some states helps explain the convergence of men and women’s labor supply. Negative CLM effects on married women’s labor supply are limited to white, Hispanic, college-educated women, and women with children. There is little evidence of effects of CLM on leisure and household production. A conceptual framework based on the concept of Work-In-Household, marriage market analysis, and the assumption of traditional gender roles helps explain gender differentials in the effects of CLM on labor supply and why these effects are larger for white and college-educated women.

The New Home Economics at Columbia and Chicago

This paper studies forty years of New Home Economics (NHE), a school of household economics started by Jacob Mincer and Gary Becker at Columbia University in the early sixties. Household economics is defined as economic research concerning decisions that household members make regarding any allocation of resources. These decisions may regard consumption, labor supply, transportation, fertility, or health. From studying the history of the NHE we learn that its growth benefited from the concentration of talent at Columbia, the diversity of a student body that included many talented men and women, a relatively high concentration of married students who tended to be more interested in household production, the proximity of research organizations in New York, an avoidance of political controversy, and a pleasant workshop atmosphere.

A Theory of Allocation of Time in Markets for Labor and Marriage: Macromodel

Work-In-Household (WiHo) is defined as a particular type of household production benefiting a spouse. Markets for WiHo establish (implicit) prices for WiHo. There are two steps to the analysis, as in Marshallian economic theory. Step 1 analyzes individual decision-making assuming that market equilibrium prices prevail in all relevant markets, including implicit prices for WiHo. Individual supplies of labor and WiHo and demands for WiHo and commercial goods are derived. Step 2 examines market equilibria in labor markets and markets for WiHo for men and women. This is a general equilibrium model. In this chapter, to simplify the analysis, I proceed with assumptions typical of macroeconomic models: labor markets have a representative worker and a representative firm and markets for WiHo have a representative woman and a representative man. The case of many different types of men and women, more adaptable to empirical studies with individual data and to micro-economic analysis, is considered in Chap. 3. This “macro” model is applied to labor supply in Chap. 4 and to consumption and savings in Chaps. 10 and 11.

An extended household model of eldercare by children and children-in-law based on Far-Eastern traditions

A model of informal caregiving is presented in which decisions are made by extended households including parents and children. An extended household possibly has both a demand and a supply of elder caregiving by children‐in‐law. A patrilocal version of the model, inspired from traditional Chinese marriage institutions adopted by a number of countries in the Far East, leads to derived demands for caregiving by daughters‐in‐law and supplies of caregiving by families of daughters. Market equilibrium prices for caregiving by children‐in‐law are established. These prices then provide incentives to which individual households respond. Payments can be made during, before, or after marriage. The model can throw light on gender differences in marital happiness, differences in the impact of eldercare on the health of in‐family caregivers and on their happiness, and East/West and regional differences in caregiving obligations of family members. It also suggests that these geographic differentials may be related to variation in family institutions, including variation in the prevalence of dowry and brideprice. The policy relevance of the model is discussed.

Labor Supply and Marriage Markets: A Simple Graphic Analysis with Household Public Goods

When modeling labor supply economists tend to be committed to the leisure/goods trade-off based on a 1930 model by Lionel Robbins that does not make room for effects of marriage market conditions on labor supply. By introducing Work-In-Household (WiHo) and market prices for such WiHo (as explained in Chap. 2) I obtain a relatively easy time/goods trade-off graph that shares many common features with the Robbins model but also allows for effects of marriage market conditions on time allocation, including labor supply. In contrast with earlier models in this book in which individuals only consumed private goods, this model assumes that there is one public good and no private goods.

How Marriage Markets Affect Allocation and Valuation of Time Implications from a Macro Model

What does the existence of WiHo (Work-In-Household) markets imply for the analysis of time allocation and value of time? In line with Chap. 2 the analysis is simplified by assuming just one type of man and one type of woman. Whether individuals work in household production benefiting their spouse (as WiHo-workers) or supply such work (as WiHo-users) will affect their labor supply. Integrating WiHo markets into the analysis of labor supply also influences how income (own and partner’s) affects how much people participate in the labor force, their hours of work, and their occupation. The model also leads to wage effects that differ from standard wage elasticities of labor supply and to a prediction typically overlooked in labor economics: sex ratios in marriage markets will influence labor supply and value of time. Even though the models of Chaps. 2 and 3 were rooted in Gary Becker’s theory of marriage, this chapter and the following ones diverge from Becker’s analyses in that they consider married individuals as separate decision-makers with different vested interests, depending on whether they are WiHo-workers or WiHo-users. An implication of the model for the valuation of time spent in home production (including childcare) is that value of time is not likely to depend much on whether individuals are in the labor force or not, in contrast to Robert Willis’ well-known conclusion that took account of household production but viewed households as integrated units.