Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP13782
Authors: Francesca Barigozzi; Helmuth Cremer; Chiara Monfardini
Abstract: Our model studies couples' time allocation and career choices, which are affected by a social norm on gender roles in the family. Parents can provide two types of informal child care: basic care (feeding, changing children, baby-sitting) and quality care (activities that stimulate children's social and cognitive skills). We obtain the following main results. Traditional mothers provide some informal basic care, whereas career mothers purchase full time formal basic care in the market. Informal basic care is too large and the group of career mothers is too small because of the social norm. Informal quality care is increasing in the couple's income and is provided in larger amount by mothers. We test the model's predictions for Italy using the most recent ISTAT "Use of Time" survey. In line with the model, mothers devote more time than fathers to both basic and quality informal care; more educated parents devote more time to quality informal care than less educated parents; more educated mothers spend more time in the labor market than less educated mothers.
Keywords: Social norms; Basic and quality child care; Women's career choices; Gender gaps
JEL Codes: D13; H23; J16; J22
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| social norms (Z13) | child care choices (J13) |
| social norms (Z13) | informal basic care (I19) |
| informal basic care (I19) | negative externality for career mothers (J16) |
| family income (D31) | informal quality care (I11) |
| mothers (J12) | time on basic and quality informal care (C41) |
| family income (D31) | time devoted to basic child care by mothers (D13) |