A vast international literature has provided evidence on the key role of women in household activities as well as a long-term trend of time reallocation toward a more egalitarian gender division of work. Our objective is to study the changes in gender gaps in home production and the labor market in Uruguay between 2006 and 2013. Our main conclusions are: i) the gender gaps for time spent in the labor market and home production decreased; ii) women increased their time allocated to the labor market and slightly reduced the time spent on home production, whereas the opposite is observable for men; iii) both women and men increased the time allocated to childcare, which resulted in a stable gender gap; iv) both women and men decreased the time spent on other household activities, narrowing the gender gap; and v) this less unequal division of time is also apparent when the gender gaps are measured in monetary terms, although the movement in home production prices did not contribute to reducing the gender gaps.

Population Review

Volume 60, Number 1, 2021

Type: Article, pp. 1-25

Revealing Gender Gap Changes in Home Production and

Labor Income in Uruguay

Authors: Marisa Bucheli and Cecilia Lara

Affiliations: Department of Economics, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de la República (Bucheli); Institute of Economics, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y de Administración, Universidad de la República (Lara)

Corresponding author/address: Marisa Bucheli, Department of Economics, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de la República; e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

A vast international literature has provided evidence on the key role of women in household activities as well as a long-term trend of time reallocation toward a more egalitarian gender division of work. Our objective is to study the changes in gender gaps in home production and the labor market in Uruguay between 2006 and 2013. Our main conclusions are: i) the gender gaps for time spent in the labor market and home production decreased; ii) women increased their time allocated to the labor market and slightly reduced the time spent on home production, whereas the opposite is observable for men; iii) both women and men increased the time allocated to childcare, which resulted in a stable gender gap; iv) both women and men decreased the time spent on other household activities, narrowing the gender gap; and v) this less unequal division of time is also apparent when the gender gaps are measured in monetary terms, although the movement in home production prices did not contribute to reducing the gender gaps.

Keywords

Home production, labor market, gender gap, Uruguay

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