How Do Spouses Share Their Full Income? Identification of the Sharing Rule Using Self-Reported Income

Abstract

The paper applies the collective model to the analysis of intra-household inequality using self-reported income scales. Starting from a collective model including household production, our key assumption is that the income level that household members report corresponds to their true income sharing. Using Russian data (Rounds V to VIII of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey), we apply the results for couples who report the same level of income to identify the sharing rule for the whole sample. This method allows us to obtain not only the derivatives, but also the sharing rule itself. From simulations for an average couple with one child living in the Urals, we find that a full income share of 45% is allocated to the wife.