Making Do and Getting By: Non‐Market Work and Elderly Women's Standards of Living in the United States

We use pooled data from the 2003, 2004, and 2005 American Time Use Surveys (ATUS) to explore the impact of non‐market household work on the living standards of the elderly. We describe how women and men allocate their time after they reach age 55 by race/ethnicity, age, and household structure. Focusing on those aged 55–64 and 65–74, we examine white, Black, and Hispanic differences in time use by gender, and compare women and men living alone and only with a spouse or cohabiter. Finally, we impute the replacement‐cost value of non‐market household work and its effect on standards of living of elderly women and men who live alone and elderly married couples. We find that older people reduce their paid work and increase their leisure time considerably, but non‐market work in one's own household increases only slightly at retirement. Time devoted to direct care of others in the household is small compared to indirect care activities such as housework and shopping. Older women devote more time than older men to non‐market work in their own household and spend less time than men in leisure pursuits, whether they are married or living alone. Elderly women who live alone generally enjoy more leisure time than older married women. Adding the value of non‐market work to money income has a modest equalizing effect on gender differences among persons living alone because women have less money income than men, but perform more unpaid work in their own households.