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Gender-neutral household bargaining in the absence of divorce laws
Project Type
Thesis chapter
Date
April 2023
ABSTRACT
Using the collective model of household bargaining, I analyse couples from the perspective of high-wage partner relative to low-wage partner, rather than the traditional husband-wife dichotomy. There have been significant advances in gender and sexuality equality since the collective model was first introduced twenty years ago; for example, 43\% of females in Australia now earn a higher hourly wage than their male partner. I study how partners' differences in kinship attitudes (such as opinions regarding the statement `Marriage is an outdated institution') and Body Mass Index affect household bargaining. In Australia, a country with homogeneous divorce laws, partners whose attitudes are more permissive towards divorce have their bargaining power increased. I argue that differential divorce laws in other countries affect household bargaining insofar that laws are the result of social norms. I find that specialization in the household is driven by partners' differences in bargaining power, rather than the result of gender-specific preferences regarding time allocation.