The Demand for the Wife's Non-Market Time

Abstract

person's non-market time.' Becker observed earlier that economists pay more attention to the labor supply decision than to the allocation of non-work time even though the amount of time people in most countries spend at work is less than a third of total time available [1, 493]. Perhaps a major reason why there has been little empirical work on the allocation of non-market time is a lack of data. Most time-budget studies do not include information which economists consider important, such as the wage rate.2 This paper tests some hypotheses about the allocation of the non-market time of married women. The hypotheses tested are derived from a model of the utility-maximizing household, based on the model as developed by Becker [1]. The data were collected in a survey of over 400 married female teachers, non-working teachers and substitute teachers.3 The primary purpose of the survey was to obtain labor supply information but questions were asked about the amount of time spent by the woman on certain household chores. Although we have information on only a few activities, we also have certain financial information such as the wife's wage rate which makes this data useful for economic analysis. The next section discusses the theoretical