Married With Children: A Collective Labor Supply Model with Detailed Time Use and Intrahousehold Expenditure Information

30 Pages Posted: 28 Sep 2010

See all articles by L. Cherchye

L. Cherchye

KU Leuven; Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM)

Bram De Rock

Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) - European Center for Advanced Research in Economics and Statistics (ECARES)

Frederic Vermeulen

Tilburg University - CentER; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Multiple version iconThere are 3 versions of this paper

Date Written: September 1, 2010

Abstract

We propose a collective labor supply model with household production that generalizes an original model of Blundell, Chiappori and Meghir (2005). In our model, adults’ individual preferences do not only depend on own leisure and individual private consumption of market goods. They also depend on the consumption of domestic goods, which are produced by combining goods bought at the market with individuals’ time. We apply our model to new and unique data on Dutch couples with children. The data contains detailed information about the spouses’ time use and the intrahousehold allocation of all expenditures. Our application uses a novel estimation strategy that builds upon the familiar two-stage allocation representation of the collective model. We obtain interesting (and plausible) empirical results. Spouses’ preferences depend on the consumption of domestically produced goods (including children’s welfare). Next, Pareto weights depend on variables like the individual wages and the share in the household’s nonlabor income. Finally, and perhaps surprisingly, we do not find evidence that mothers care more for their children than fathers.

Keywords: collective model, labor supply, time use, public goods, household production

JEL Classification: D11, D12, D13

Suggested Citation

Cherchye, Laurens and De Rock, Bram and Vermeulen, Frederic, Married With Children: A Collective Labor Supply Model with Detailed Time Use and Intrahousehold Expenditure Information (September 1, 2010). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1683354 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1683354

Laurens Cherchye (Contact Author)

KU Leuven ( email )

Oude Markt 13
Leuven, Vlaams-Brabant
Belgium

Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM)

P.O. Box 1738
3000 DR Rotterdam
Netherlands

Bram De Rock

Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) - European Center for Advanced Research in Economics and Statistics (ECARES) ( email )

Av. F. D. Roosevelt, 50
CP 114
Brussels, B-1050
Belgium

Frederic Vermeulen

Tilburg University - CentER ( email )

P.O. Box 90153
5000 LE Tilburg
Netherlands
+31 13 466 3196 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://center.uvt.nl/staff/vermeulen/

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

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