She Works Hard for the Money: Household Responsibilities and the Allocation of Work Effort

Abstract

Recent developments in human capital theory suggest that men and women differ in how they allocate effort to work activities. This paper uses the 1973 and 1977 Quality of Employment Surveys to test the assumtion that women allocate less effort to work because of their family and household responsibilities. Regression and ordered probit analyses show that, on average, women allocate more effort to work than do men. Further, the sex difference is substantial when men and women with comparable family situations and market human capital are compared. The paper discusses how experiments on sex differences in standards of "personal entitlement" and research on sex-segregated workplaces provide an alternative to the economists' perspective. Finally, the paper argues for an integration of human capital models, research on social equity, and structural theories of work organization in order to provide a more complete explanation of men's and women's orientations toward work and family.