Risky Investment

theorizing housekeepers' disadvantageous human capital accumulation

田中重人 <tsigeto(AT)nik.sal.tohoku.ac.jp>
(東北大学大学院文学研究科)

Paper to be read at the 20th World Congress, International Federation for Home Economics (IFHE-20), 2004-08-06 Kyoto.

Topic area: Family Economics
Presentation Style: Oral
Session: 2004-08-06 (Friday) 11:00－12:30 "Session 1: New approaches and frameworks 2"

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(この抄録は、IFHE-20 事務局に提出されたものです。報告要旨集International Federation for Home Economics (2004) Research and practitioner's paper abstracts, IHFE the 20th World Congress に掲載されています。)

This paper theorizes a widely believed, but rarely proven notion: the economic disadvantages of being a housekeeper. To be sure, we know that housekeepers are disadvantaged in paid work due to household responsibilities and thereby entail lower earnings. But this is insufficient to lay down the assumption that housekeepers are disadvantaged in the whole of the economic life, for the following reasons: (1) the disadvantages in paid work can be counterbalanced by the advantages in unpaid housework; (2) housekeepers often establish a household and enjoy an equal living standard to their non-housekeeper spouses. This paper aims to refute these two objections and to maintain the assumption of the disadvantage of housekeepers.

We apply human capital theory to discuss (1) the difference between paid work and housework in relation to the market and (2) how dissolution of a household (e.g., by divorce) impacts on housekeepers and non-housekeepers.

Products of paid work are sold in the market, which efficiently finds demands for the products supplied; in contrast, products of housework are consumed within a small household, where demand may be easily depleted.
Housekeepers take risks that can be concealed as long as they live a stable household life.

Housekeepers are disadvantaged in the whole of the economic life because they make a risky investment in human capital for housework instead of the safer investment for paid work.

Keywords

human capital, altruism, intra-household bargaining, inequality

Risky Investment

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