Togetherness in the Household

Bertrand Verheyden; Alexandros Theloudis; Sam Cosaert

doi:10.1257/mic.20200220

Togetherness in the Household

Bertrand Verheyden
, Alexandros Theloudis
, Sam Cosaert

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Spending time with a spouse is a major gain from marriage. We extend the classical collective model of the household to allow for togetherness between spouses. Togetherness takes the form of joint leisure and joint care for children. Using revealed preference conditions and Dutch data over the years 2009–2012, we find that households are willing to pay €1.20 per hour—10 percent of the average wage—to convert private leisure to joint leisure and €2.10 per hour to convert private childcare to joint childcare. Our results suggest togetherness is an important component of household time use despite being over- looked in the economics literature.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	529-579
Number of pages	51
Journal	American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
Volume	15
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1257/mic.20200220
Publication status	Published - Feb 2023

Keywords

Consumer Economics
Household Production and Intrahousehold Allocation
Marriage
Economics of Gender

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10.1257/mic.20200220

Cite this

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title = "Togetherness in the Household",

abstract = "Spending time with a spouse is a major gain from marriage. We extend the classical collective model of the household to allow for togetherness between spouses. Togetherness takes the form of joint leisure and joint care for children. Using revealed preference conditions and Dutch data over the years 2009–2012, we find that households are willing to pay €1.20 per hour—10 percent of the average wage—to convert private leisure to joint leisure and €2.10 per hour to convert private childcare to joint childcare. Our results suggest togetherness is an important component of household time use despite being over- looked in the economics literature.",

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author = "Bertrand Verheyden and Alexandros Theloudis and Sam Cosaert",

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T1 - Togetherness in the Household

AU - Verheyden, Bertrand

AU - Theloudis, Alexandros

AU - Cosaert, Sam

PY - 2023/2

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N2 - Spending time with a spouse is a major gain from marriage. We extend the classical collective model of the household to allow for togetherness between spouses. Togetherness takes the form of joint leisure and joint care for children. Using revealed preference conditions and Dutch data over the years 2009–2012, we find that households are willing to pay €1.20 per hour—10 percent of the average wage—to convert private leisure to joint leisure and €2.10 per hour to convert private childcare to joint childcare. Our results suggest togetherness is an important component of household time use despite being over- looked in the economics literature.

AB - Spending time with a spouse is a major gain from marriage. We extend the classical collective model of the household to allow for togetherness between spouses. Togetherness takes the form of joint leisure and joint care for children. Using revealed preference conditions and Dutch data over the years 2009–2012, we find that households are willing to pay €1.20 per hour—10 percent of the average wage—to convert private leisure to joint leisure and €2.10 per hour to convert private childcare to joint childcare. Our results suggest togetherness is an important component of household time use despite being over- looked in the economics literature.

KW - Consumer Economics

KW - Household Production and Intrahousehold Allocation

KW - Marriage

KW - Economics of Gender

UR - https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mic.20200220

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SP - 529

EP - 579

JO - American Economic Journal: Microeconomics

JF - American Economic Journal: Microeconomics

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ER -

Togetherness in the Household

Abstract

Keywords

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TIMING: Time: too little, too late or too lone? Theoretical, empirical and experimental investigation of time choices

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Togetherness in the Household

Abstract

Keywords

Access to Document

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TIMING: Time: too little, too late or too lone? Theoretical, empirical and experimental investigation of time choices

Cite this