Home Location Choices and the Gender Commute Gap

Abstract

Using administrative records of home mortgages in Beijing, we show that dual-income households systematically choose to buy homes that are closer to the wife’s workplace. The wife’s commute from the newly purchased home is on average 11% shorter by distance than the husband’s. We estimate a discrete home location choice model and find that households derive substantially larger disutility from the wife’s commute than from the husband’s. Through the lens of a simple collective household model, we show evidence that the gender commute gap reflects the intra-household division of labor and relative bargaining power.

Keywords: gender gap, commute to work, housing demand

JEL Classification: J16, R21, J22