Women’s employment and the decline of home cooking: Evidence from France, 1985–2010
Journal article: We here investigate the extent to which labour-market changes explain the decline in the time spent home cooking by married women in France between 1985 and 2010. Using time use data and Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions, we find that rising women’s employment and observed wages together account for about 60% of the fall in the time married women spent cooking. We then use a semi-parametric matching technique to construct an implicit wage rate, which better reflects the change in labour-market incentives that individuals face. The rise in women’s implicit wages explains no more than 20% of the decline in their cooking time, while the wage of their partner has no effect. Changing labour-market incentives are thus far from being the main driver of the decline in home-cooking. We also find evidence that home cooking continues to be structured by the gendered social norm of the “proper family meal”.
Author(s)
Fabrice Etilé, Marie Plessz
Journal
- Review of Economics of the Household
Date of publication
- 2018
Keywords JEL
Keywords
- Cooking
- Household production
- Labour supply
- Wages
- Gender
Pages
- 939 – 970
URL of the HAL notice
Version
- 1
Volume
- 16