Empirical evidence on intrafamily time allocation

Abstract

Whether intrahousehold time allocation, respectively resource allocation, is determined by joint utility maximization of the household or by cooperative or non-cooperative bargaining between family members turns out to be critical to our interpretation of the changing patterns of women and men’s time use, in particular with respect to increasing female employment. It is also critical to our understanding of the impact of welfare reforms on the behavior and economic welfare of different household members and it has specifically different implications for social policy measures and the design of the tax-transfer system. Each of the frameworks described in the previous chapter is based on a different set of assumptions and makes different predictions about the distribution of resources within households. In order to select the most appropriate model for a particular situation, the validity of the prevailing assumptions have to be tested against the data. Another question to be asked would be whether the outcomes that we observe are consistent with the framework and predictions of the prevailing model (Doss 1996).