Economic Development with Sexual Division of Labor

Abstract

It is reasonable to argue that there are dynamic interactions between economic growth, capital accumulation, creativity, knowledge utilization, the labor force, the time distribution between work and leisure, and sexual division of labor and consumption. Yet there are only a few theoretical economic models which explicitly take account of these interactions within a compact framework. There is an immense body of empirical and theoretical literature on economic growth with capital accumulation and endogenous knowledge and on complex of time distribution between home and non-home economic and leisure activities. Over the years there have been a number of attempts to modify the neoclassical consumer theory to deal with economic issues about endogenous labor supply, family structure, working hours and the valuation of traveling time (Becker, 1976, Chiappori, 1988, 1992, Folbre, 1986, Mills and Hamilton, 1985, Ashenfelter and Layard, 1992). For instance, there is an increasing amount of economic literature about the sexual division of labor, marriage and divorce, and decision making about family size. It has been argued that the increasing returns from human capital accumulation represent a powerful force creating a division of labor in the allocation of time between the male and female population (Becker, 1985). There are studies on the relationship between economic growth and the family distribution of income (Fei, Ranis and Kuo, 1978). There are studies of the female labor supply. Women choose levels of market time on the basis of wage rates and incomes.