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

25 Pages Posted: 25 Mar 2018

See all articles by Ursina Kuhn

Ursina Kuhn

Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences (FORS)

Laura Ravazzini

University of Neuchatel; Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences (FORS)

Date Written: March 22, 2018

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.

Keywords: Labour Supply, Working Mothers, Couples, Division of Labour, Attitudes

JEL Classification: J20, H31, C35

Suggested Citation

Kuhn, Ursina and Ravazzini, Laura, Moral Pressures for Women to Stay Home: Incorporating Gender Role Attitudes into a Categorical Labour Supply Model of Couples (March 22, 2018). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3146965 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3146965

Ursina Kuhn

Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences (FORS) ( email )

Bâtiment Géopolis, 5th floor
Lausanne, CH-1015
Switzerland

Laura Ravazzini (Contact Author)

University of Neuchatel ( email )

27, Fbg. de l'Hopital
Neuchatel, CH-2000
Switzerland

Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences (FORS) ( email )

Bâtiment Géopolis, 5th floor
Lausanne, CH-1015
Switzerland

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