quote:

---

(London) Married men earn more than bachelors so long as their wives stay at home doing the housework, according to a report on Wednesday from Britain's Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER).

Academics Elena Bardasi and Mark Taylor found that a married man whose wife does not go out to work but is primarily responsible for the cooking and cleaning earns about 3 percent more than comparably employed single men.

But that wage premium disappears if wives go out to work themselves or don't do most of the housework.

"It has been fairly well documented that married men earn more than single men," Taylor, a labour economist, told Reuters.

"However, our research established the wage premium is related to the wife doing the chores," said the academic who teaches at the University of Essex.

He said analysis suggests there could be two explanations for the results:

A marriage might allow a husband and wife to focus their activities on tasks to which they are most suited. Traditionally, this would result in the man concentrating on paid work enabling him to increase productivity and in consequence his wages.

Taylor said another explanation could be that marriage may increase the amount of time a man has to hone work-related skills which could trigger higher wages.

---

[ 22 June 2005: Message edited by: Hephaestion ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by skdadl:
This fact -- this undeniable fact -- was part of the basic logic of women's struggles in the 1970s and 1980s to change family law in Canada so that women would not be impoverished upon divorce. That women contribute to a marriage even if they are not making deposits to a bank account was a fact not at all apparent to our law-makers and courts until a critical number of women finally started forcing the issue.

---

And it is this attitude (the one being fought that is) that also caused the double-edged sword for working women of getting paid less. The husband was the 'real breadwinner', so it's okay to pay women less because they are just here for spending money. It meant women were in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. I remember my Mom being left out of training session when she started pushing the issue in early 70s. That way they could pretend it was because the men were more highly 'trained'. Of course the fact she wasn't allowed to go and they were doing the same job as her when they got back was totally irrelevant for the employer. That was until my Mom finaly had enough and forced, and I do mean forced, the Union to join in her fight.

[ 22 June 2005: Message edited by: Grant I R ]

I was surprised (and annoyed) to run into that. I kind of figured that by my generation (I'm 27), that had mostly gone away.

It didn't help that they kept being astonished that my husband did all the cooking and most of the housework.

That there was a glaring wage gap-no question
That the practice still goes on where unspoken or unchallenged-no question

That an idiot thinks its a good area of research as this study-what a maroon!

And who funded it? Equally idiots. Work no ways to end such things not spout statistics that reinforce inequalities

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alix:
You think that attitude's over?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Grant I R:
Did I say it was? No. Yet you assume I'm ignorant- so much of that lately

---

When I moderated a forum for young mothers a number of years ago, so many of them were surprised and angry to discover that the division of household chores was still a contentious gender issue. (I was also unpleasantly shocked.)

~~~~~

Now, suppose that they did a survey like this among working women, and looked for salary differences among single women, married women who had somebody else (say, a husband or a maid) doing all of the housework for them and married women who had to do all of the housework. I'd be pretty shocked if that study didn't uncover the same kind of result: the fewer tedious commitments a person has outside of work, the more likely they are to succeed at work. Duhhh. Somebody please give me some grant money.

[Edited to add:]
Raos, I cross-posted with you while making the same point. Great minds and all...

[ 22 June 2005: Message edited by: Albireo ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Michelle:

Oh, I took Alix's question as a rhetorical one rather than aimed at you, Grant. It sounds like you know the score pretty well from your posts in this thread. I'm impressed with your wife's comeback to Mr. Master's Degree.

---

But I'd like how it is that initially when a man and a woman move in together or get married, household tasks are pretty much equally distributed according to their situation or their preferences, but that after the arrival of the first child, things become lopsided and the woman bears so much of the childcare and childraising responsibilities that there's little energy left for 'doing more' in the workplace.