Page 389 - Contributed Paper Session (CPS) - Volume 6

CPS1993 Asmae Mhmmoudi
To investigate the factors affecting couple’s allocation of time to
housework and childcare, two types of variables are included: individual-
specific and couple-specific variables:
 Average age of the couple: introduced to capture susceptible changes
of social norms. A traditional role sharing is therefore is expected for old
couples. (Anxo & Carlin(2004)).
 Age difference: as the difference between husband’s age and wife’s age.
(Beblo (1999)) argues that the larger the age differential, the more
unequal is the gender division of work.
“Wife is older than husband” is the omitted reference category in the
estimation.
 Area of residence: Rural area is chosen as the reference
 Age of children: the presence of children and their age affect the time
use of their parents. Tree variables corresponding to children’s age are
included. i) Couple has at least a child less than 2 years old ii) aged 3 to
5 years iii) aged between 6 and 15 years.
 Educational level: educational attainment potentially affects the spouses’
allocation of time between market time and home production through
two channels. i) Education directly affects earning opportunities.
Consequently, this influences bargaining power within couples. ii) Highly
educated households would tend to have a more equal distribution of
housework time by gender. The educational variable utilized is
educational level.
Four dummies are constructed and those with no education are chosen
as the reference
 Number of rooms: treated as a continuous variable and reflected the
surface of housing.
 Employment status. This variable is differentiating between three
employments status.
Category with the “employed ones” is chosen as the reference
 Size of the household: number of persons living in the household may
also influence couple’s allocation to housework: the presence of
additional person is expected to increase total time devoted to home
production. This variable is treated as a continuous variable.

4. Results – unpaid work
The results discussed in this section are from the estimation of time spent
on unpaid work. The next section analyses the results of the estimations of
time spent on housework and childcare separately. In order to see how
explanatory variables affect couple’s behaviors according the area of
residence, unpaid work is estimated in this section at national level, urban area
and at the rural area.

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