Measuring gendered values of time for married couples by life stage based on an intertemporal household utility-maximization model

Abstract

We investigate the value of time as a resource (VOTR) and the value of childcare time saving (VOCTS) for a married couple with children by life cycle stage. Extending the framework of DeSerpa (1971), we develop a novel intertemporal utility-maximization model that can represent trade-offs within an individual and within a couple between different activities in their life stages based on a household lifetime equilibrium, and we derive wives’ and husbands’ time values when their first child is of pre-school age and after their first child reaches school age. Applying the model to the 2004–2018 Japan Household Panel Survey, we analyze couples in two life stages to empirically find the value of time by gender. The results show that the wives’ average VOTR is greater than 4400 yen/hour with statistical significance when their first child is of pre-school age; the value, however, drastically drops to around 400 yen/hour with statistical insignificance after their first child reaches school age. Conversely, the magnitudes of the husbands’ VOTRs do not change much in different life stages. In the background mechanisms, the wives’ high and low VOTRs reflect their short and long work and commute hours, respectively, whereas the husbands reduce their work and commute hours only slightly over time. For the dual-income households that only spend the minimum required time on childcare, VOCTS is statistically insignificant when their first child is of pre-school age but is greater than 28,000 yen/hour after their first child reaches school age. Using the estimated time values for urban and transport policy simulations, we find that enabling work flexibility could help households increase welfare more compared to transportation improvement and childcare support services.