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Economic and Social Impact of Patriarchal Family Structures

Paper Session

Friday, Jan. 5, 2018 2:30 PM - 4:30 PM

Loews Philadelphia, Parlor 2
Hosted By: International Association for Feminist Economics
  • Chair: Julie A. Nelson, University of Massachusetts Boston

Don’t Throw Out the Baby with the Bathwater!

Erica Aloé
,
Sapienza University of Rome
Marcella Corsi
,
Sapienza University of Rome
Carlo D'Ippoliti
,
Sapienza University of Rome

Abstract

In the history of economic thought, unpaid care work finds a remarkably limited acknowledgement. However, two notable exceptions are found in founding figures of the Chicago School, namely Gary Becker, and of the Marxist school of thought, Friedrich Engels.
The works of both authors were widely discussed and criticised by feminist scholars. On the one hand, the “domestic labour debate” in Marxist theory mostly focused on the relationship between domestic work and capital accumulation, though it often overlooked the gendered aspects of the division of domestic work. On the other hand, the work of Becker and the New Household Economics was continued, but also fiercely criticised, by feminist economists, especially with respect to issues pertaining to individual and collective behaviour.
In this article we will present the main contributions by feminist economists on the conceptualization and analysis of unpaid care work, both in terms of developments and of criticisms to Engels’ and Becker’s theories. Even though feminist economists even turned these theories inside out, we believe that they contain ideas too that deserve to be saved, as Engels' acknowledgement of the gender division of work in different historic periods, or Becker's distinction between leisure and domestic work.

Biology or Social Norms - What Explains Mothers' Larger Share of Parental Responsibilities?

Ylva Moberg
,
Uppsala University

Abstract

The skewed division of parental responsabilities during a child's infancy if often assumed to be a "natural" consequence of the mother being pregnant and wanting to breastfeed. In this paper I investigate to what extent the tendancy to let the mother be the main caregiver of an infant can be explained by the fact that she if the one to be pregnant, not the father. I use the division of parental leave as a proxy for the division of parental responsabilites, and compare the behavior or biological parents (where the mother gave birth) to adoptive parents (where she did not) in Swedish population wide register data. My results show that adoptive parents, both mothers and fathers, spend less time on parental leave than biological parents, but that the mother's share of leave is about the same as among biological parents. There is thus some support for the hypothesis that a biological tie increases the parent's time investment in the child, but not that this relationship is stronger for women. There is no indication that the mother's birth giving status can expline her share of parental responsabilities. However, due to methodological challeges, it is difficult to disentangle the different mechanisms that could explain the results.

The Impact of Maternal Autonomy on Child Health Outcomes in Turkey: Principle Component Analysis

Tunay Oguz
,
Lenoir Rhyne University

Abstract

The goals of this study are to contribute to understanding how to reduce the rate of stunting in children even further while at the same time exploring some of the possible effects of increases in autonomy for women in Turkey. In this study, I used the 2008 Turkish Demographic and Health Survey. TDHS has rich variety of gender norm variables that allow me to assess the level of a mother’s conformance to traditional gender roles and levels of autonomy. However, I find that these autonomy variables are highly correlated with each other. To overcome this redundancy I used the Principal Component Analysis method. I find that woman’s autonomy is positively associated with her children’s nutritional status and has long-term consequences on her child’s nutritional status. For instance, I found that mothers with lack of autonomy are more likely to exercise a nutritional discrimination in favor of male children. Furthermore, I find that the degree to which a mother is able to exercise autonomy in the household is more important for female child nutritional status than her level of education. In addition, I find that female children fare better in terms of nutritional status when they are raised in households with more highly educated fathers. Overall, my findings indicate that there is room to improve childhood health outcomes in Turkey, and therefore a child’s life chances, with policies that support women’s autonomy and investments in education, particularly for men.

Who Manages Household Finances in Married and Cohabiting Couples? The Role of Relative Income and Gender

Madelaine L'Esperance
,
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Abstract

Managing financial matters is a task typically handled by one member of a couple in a household. Prior studies of male-female married couples show that women who earn more income than their partners are more likely to take responsibility for general household tasks, like cooking, cleaning, and childcare. Other studies that focus on financial tasks find that the higher-earning partner typically assumes more responsibility for these tasks, regardless of gender. Using panel data from the Survey of Consumer Payment Choice, this study examines how relative income and gender influence who takes responsibility for two types of financial tasks: (1) paying monthly bills, a routine financial task, and (2) managing savings and investments, a non-routine task. Higher income rank positively influences the likelihood a person will take responsibility for household financial decisions. The influence of income rank does not vary by gender of the higher earner. An exploration of the heterogeneity of this relationship across households reveals that the main finding is driven by households with low measured financial literacy and low-income. Income rank has a greater influence on the likelihood a person will take responsibility for finances in these households. Finally, I find that who the couple decides to make financial decisions does not influence financial outcomes.

Hidden Figures: The (In)Visibility of Women Economists in Italian Economic Journals from 1930 to 1970

Giulia Zacchia
,
Sapienza University of Rome

Abstract

An increasing number of studies, mainly focused on the Anglo-Saxon countries and particularly North America, found that women, despite the discrimination they faced, significantly contributed to economics. Some historians developed statistical analyses of the frequency and topics of women’s contributions. Others, collected bibliographies or selections of writings by women economists. This allows to reconstruct the biographies of women who made a substantive contribution to the economic field. Among those women economists few are Italian. Evidently, this does not entitle us to infer that women economists do not contribute to the field in Italy in the recent past.
The paper aims at shedding light on the contributions by women Italian economists for the 1930s-1970s period. In order to deny the Baumol’s (1995) idea that a few women were contributing to the economic literature, we propose a gender analysis of authors of Italian economic journals from 1930 to 1970. We analyse both the differences between men and women in visibility and productivity in Italian economic journals and the relative specialization of women authors by subject areas, trying to fill the substantial ignorance about who were effectively the women pioneers of economics in Italy.
Discussant(s)
Edith Kuiper
,
State University of New York-New Paltz
Julie A. Nelson
,
University of Massachusetts-Boston
JEL Classifications
  • B5 - Current Heterodox Approaches
  • J1 - Demographic Economics