Women spend too much time on housework relative to men, new research suggests, and it’s probably dragging on U.S. productivity.
That’s the first finding in this week’s economic research wrap, which also looks at changes in the way women have spent their days in recent years and summarizes studies on spillovers from central bank balance-sheet normalization. Check this column each Tuesday for new and topical research from around the world.
Less time for bringing home the bacon
Women have less time for on-the-job labor because they spend more time doing housework than their male counterparts — so they miss out when they’re working in fields that reward long hours, based on a new National Bureau for Economic Research study. Some women shy away from jobs in fields that require long workweeks, knowing they won’t have the time: a 10 percent cut in free time for women reduces their share in high-hour occupations by about 14 percent relative to men,
