Too Many Hours—Too Little Pay: The Impact of Market and Household Hours on Women’s Work Lives

Work has many components. For many women, the great divide is the number of hours spent in the paid labor force relative to the number of hours working in the household. As the number of hours women commit to the labor market expands, there is a potential for a nurturance gap [Stanfield and Stanfield 1997] as the family unit finds itself underserved. On the other hand, if women choose to emphasize household work, they do not accumulate useable human capital necessary to protect their long-term economic well-being. The result is that many women in families, participating fully in both home and market, work too many hours for too little pay. This paper adds to the research in the economics of household labor through an analysis of the current work effort required of women in different types of families. How many hours does it take to maintain the household? Just how many hours do women in households work each week? What are the actual hourly earnings for that labor? And what are the benefits associated with this work effort?