Wants and Working Wives: Household Demand and Saving in Australia*

Household survey data are used to compare the consumption and savings behaviour of families in which both husband and wife work with the behaviour when only the husband is employed. Other household characteristics allowed for are age, socio‐economic class and family size. A linear systems model is used and attention is focused on alternative methods of estimating the parameters of the Klein‐Rubin utility function. The preferred method involves the use of information from time‐series studies in estimating the ‘subsistence’ parameters.