Abstract
The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), 1985–1992, are the data used to simultaneously examine the role of family stability to both market and household time allocation for both spouses and the role of couples’ time allocation in their probability of divorce. The study found that increases in the probabilities of divorce were only significantly correlated with decreases in wife’s housework time. It was also found by the study that increases in the husband’s market work hours and increases in the wife’s household work hours had negative effects on the probability of divorce.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Waite and Lillard (1991) concluded that “although a simple measure of number of children born does not reflect the complex effect of children on the chances that a marriage will end, use of such a variable -or even no measures of marital child bearing-has little effect on conclusions about the strength of other factors.” Given this conclusion it was the decision of the researchers to control for the presence of children, the number of children, as well as the age of the youngest child, in order to address this important factor. However, as the focus of this paper is the inter-relationships between time allocations and divorce, no attempt was made to model fertility as a simultaneous choice.
The methods employed by the research were as follows. First, the Heckmann (1979) technique was employed to estimate wage rates for those women who were not employed in the labor market. Second, a probability of market work equation was estimated as a function of exogenous variables expected to have an effect on the probability of a wife entering the labor market. From this equation, estimates of the wife’s probability of market work were calculated to use in the double-hurdle Tobit model for wife’s hours of labor market participation. The suitability of the double-hurdle Tobit model was tested using the method prepared by Cragg (1971). The test statistic resulted a χ2-value of 169.62 with 17 degrees of freedom. As such, the hypothesis of the regular Tobit being equivalent to the double-hurdle Tobit was rejected. For each of the four mutually endogenous regressors, husband’s hours of market and home production and wife’s hours of market and home production, reduced form equations were estimated where each were employed as dependent variables in equations estimated as a function of all exogenous regressors. From these, estimated values were calculated from the exogenous variables to be employed in the second stage estimation of the structural equations to be presented. The use of estimated values in the second stage ordinary least squares and logit regressions are expected to result in conservative estimates of t-statistics as the standard errors may be inflated. On the other hand, the use of Tobit in a simultaneous system produces standard errors that may be biased downward, as well as upward.
Separation was included with divorce as an indicator of marital instability.
Symmetry, in economic theory, requires the Slutsky substitution effects to be equal, not the total cross-price effect.
References
Becker, G. S. (1965). A theory of the allocation of time. The Economic Journal, 75(299), 493–517.
Becker, G. S. (1991). Assortative mating in marriage markets: Chapter 4. In G. S. Becker (Ed.), A treatise on the family. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Becker, G. S., Michael, R. T., & Landes, E. M. (1977). An economic analysis of marital instability. Journal of Political Economy, 85(6), 1153–89.
Bryant, W. K. (1990). Work and leisure: How the household spends its time: Chapter 5. In W. K. Bryant (Ed.), The economic organization of the household. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Cherlin, A. (1979). Work life and marital dissolution. In G. Levinger, & O. C. Moles (Eds.), Divorce and separation (pp. 151–166). New York: Basic Books.
Cragg, J. G. (1971). Some statistical models for limited dependent variables with applications to the demand for durable goods. Econometrica, 39, 829–844.
Douthitt, R. A. (2000). Time to do the chores? Factoring home-production needs into measures of poverty. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 21(1), 7–22.
Gerner, J., Montalto, C., & Bryant, W. K. (1990). Work patterns and marital status change. Lifestyles: Family and Economic Issues, 11(1), 7–21.
Gerner, J., & Zick, C. (1983). Time allocation decisions in two-parent families. Home Economics Research Journal, 12(2), 145–158.
Gray, J. S. (1995). The causality between employment and divorce. Family Economics and Resource Management Biennia, 1, 171–176.
Greene, W. H., & Quester, A. O. (1982). Divorce risk and wives’ labor supply behavior. Social Science Quarterly, 63(1), 16–27.
Gujarati, D. N. (2003). Basic Econometrics (4th ed). New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.
Heckman, J. J. (1979). Sample selection bias as a specification error. Econometrica, 47(1), 153–161.
Johnson, W. R., & Skinner, J. (1986). Labor supply and marital separation. The American Economic Review, 76(3), 455–469.
Johnson, W. R., & Skinner, J. (1988). Accounting for changes in the labor supply of recently divorced women. The Journal of Human Resources, 23(4), 417–436.
Johnston, J. (1972). Econometric methods (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw Hill.
Killingsworth, M. R. (1983). Labor Supply. UK: Cambridge University Press.
Levinger, G. (1979). A social psychological perspective on marital dissolution. In G. Levinger, & O. C. Moles (Eds.), Divorce and Separation (pp. 37–60). New York: Basic Books.
Lillard, L. A., & Waite, L. J. (1993). A joint model of childbearing and marital disruption. Demography, 30(4), 653–681.
Michael, R. T. (1996). Money Illusion: The importance of household time use in social policy making. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 17(3/4), 245–260.
Montalto, C. P. (1994). Married women’s labor force participation as divorce insurance. Financial Counseling and Planning, 5, 191–206.
Spitze, G., & South, S. J. (1985). Women’s employment, time expenditure, and divorce. Journal of Family Issues, 6(3), 307–329.
U.S. Census Bureau (1997). Mini historical statistics. (Marital status of women in the civilian labor force) Retrieved March 4, 1998, from http://www.census.gov/statab/www/minihs.html
U.S. Census Bureau (1992). Statistical abstract of the United States 1992. (The national data book; Table 127). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration.
Trzcinski, E. (1996). Effects of uncertainty and risk on the allocation of time of married women. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 17(3/4), 327–350.
U. S. Department of Education. (2005). Helping your child through early adolescence. Washington, DC: Office of Communications and Outreach.
Waite, L. J., & Lillard, L. A. (1991). Children and marital disruption. American Journal of Sociology, 96, 930–953.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Weagley, R.O., Chan, ML. & Yan, J. Married Couples’ Time Allocation Decisions and Marital Stability. J Fam Econ Iss 28, 507–525 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-007-9070-y
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-007-9070-y