Are Women Happier When Their Spouse is Teleworker?

Giovanis, Eleftherios (2018) Are Women Happier When Their Spouse is Teleworker? Journal of Happiness Studies, 19 (3). pp. 719-754. ISSN 1389-4978

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Abstract

© 2017 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. This study explores the household production allocation and happiness of women when their spouse is teleworker using data from the British Household Panel Survey over the years 1991–2009. The study aims to answer whether the women spend additional time on housework and are happier when they or their partner is teleworker. Also, we explore whether are happier when they share the household–domestic production with their partners. Fixed effects estimates take place, and we consider a Bayesian Network framework and a directed acyclic graph for causal inference. The results show that women are more likely to state that the household allocation, such as cooking, cleaning, ironing and childcare is shared when their partner teleworks. Shopping is an exception which can be regarded as an outdoor activity while one partner may be mainly responsible for this chore. In addition, women are happier when they or their spouse is teleworker, and they report higher levels of happiness when the household production allocation is a shared process. This may indicate men teleworkers may contribute extra to the household production releasing a burden for the partners and improving their well-being.