Moral Pressures for Women to Stay Home: Incorporating Gender Role Attitudes into a Categorical Labour Supply Model of Couples

Abstract

This study investigates the importance of gender role attitudes for the labour supply decisions of couples. To account for the interdependence between partners, categorical labour supply models are applied to 2004 and 2014 data of the Swiss Household Panel (SHP). In addition to the standard specification constructed with wages and incomes of the two partners, taxes, child-care costs, and socio-demographic characteristics, we include also gender role attitudes to the model. Results show that labour supply elasticities are close to zero. The only exception is women’s negative cross-wage elasticity, which demonstrates that women react more strongly to their partner’s wage than their own. Most importantly, this study shows that gender role attitudes influence labour supply decisions in two ways. First, women’s and their partner’s attitudes are taste shifters that influence women’s preference to stay home. Second, gender role attitudes alter the reaction to financial incentives. In this sense, we find that labour supply elasticities are more negative for women with home-oriented attitudes. Women’s utility of staying home is also higher in the Italian-speaking part of the country, suggesting that culture matters for women’s labour supply decisions.