Almut Balleer, Monika Merz, Tamas K. Papp (Institute for Advances Studies, Vienna):

Couples’ Time-Use and Aggregate Outcomes: Evidence from a Structural Model

Abstract

We analyze the economic determinants of couples’ decisions to allocate
their available time across market work, home work, and leisure using
the German Time-Use Surveys of 2001/02 and 2012/13. These data allow
identifying actual couples who can be married or cohabiting.
Specifically, we use Bayesian indirect inference to estimate a static
model of couples’ time-allocation decisions allowing for `no market
work’ as a possible outcome. The model features intra-household and
inter-household heterogeneity. Partners differ in their tastes for
purchased consumption goods and non-market goods and activities as well
as in their offered or earned wage rate. We use the estimated model as a
lab for counterfactual exercises in the cross-section. We find own-wage
and cross-wage elasticities of hours worked to be larger for females
than males, and that the extensive margin of adjusting employment is
quantitatively more important than the intensive margin. We also
aggregate preferences and wages by gender and compare outcomes for a
stand-in couple with those from heterogeneous couples. We find that
preferences rather than wages are the prime determinant of labor-leisure
choices in the aggregate, especially for females.