Can you do the dishes? Intra-household time use, division of labor and fertility
Women everywhere do more housework (including childcare) than men, which can negatively affect fertility and women’s careers. I argue that rebalancing the housework load increases female employment and men’s opportunity cost of children: only if outsourcing childcare is possible, fertility also increases. Using Italian data, I estimate a life-cycle model of housework, employment and fertility, with limited nursery schools. To match time-use moments, men’s weight in housework production should be 30% as women’s, even accounting for labor market gaps, perceived housework skills, and preferences. Housework imbalance has a similar effect on employment to an additional 50% gender wage gap, and accounts for 70% of the child penalty. Removing all constraints, fertility increases to 2.28 (+63%) children per woman and female employment to 0.97 (+40%, mostly driven by housework). The model replicates negative correlation between fertility and female employment in Southern Italy, positive correlation in the North, and historical trends.
