Domestic Outsourcing, Housework Time, and Subjective Time Pressure: New Insights From Longitudinal Data

• Author: Francisco Perales,Sergi Vidal,Lyn Craig,Janeen Baxter
• Published date: 01 October 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12321
• Date: 01 October 2016

L C University of New South Wales

F P, S V,  J B The University of Queensland∗

Domestic Outsourcing, Housework Time,

and Subjective Time Pressure: New Insights

From Longitudinal Data

Hiring household help could reduce housework

time and alleviate subjective time pressure.

Associations are assumed to be particularly

apparent for women because they spend more

time on housework than men. But empirical evi-

dence on whether hiring help actually saves time

or relieves time pressure is scant and inconclu-

sive, chiey because of data and methodological

limitations. This study improves on earlier ones

in that the authors examined panel data from

the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics

in Australia Survey (n=5,124 couples) that

enable modeling techniques that take account of

selection effects, possible reverse causality, and

unobserved heterogeneity. Contrary to some

earlier studies, the authors show that outsourc-

ing does in fact reduce housework time, narrow

gender gaps, and lower women’s subjective

time pressure. They conclude that domestic out-

sourcing may save time and reduce subjective

Social Policy Research Centre, John Goodsell Building,

University of New South Wales,Kensington Campus,

Sydney, Australia (lcraig@unsw.edu.au).

∗Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for

Children and Families over the Life Course, Institute for

Social Science Research, The University of Queensland,

Long Pocket Campus, Brisbane, Australia.

This article was edited by Jennifer Glass.

Key Words: Australia, domestic outsourcing,gender, house-

work, inequality, panel data, time pressure.

pressure for some women, but one consequence

may be increased inequality between women

who can and cannot afford domestic help.

It is widely assumed that hiring household help,

often referred to as domestic outsourcing (Craig

& Baxter, 2014; Sullivan & Gershuny, 2013), is

a way of minimizing time spent on housework,

making gender shares of housework more equal,

and reducing time pressure. However, empirical

testing of these expectations is sparse, and prior

studies have not convincingly conrmed them.

Most studies suggest, counterintuitively, that

domestic outsourcing has little relationship to

time spent on housework and is not associated

with lower levels of time pressure. However, all

the previous studies of which we are aware have

used cross-sectional analyses, so these results

may be due to data and methodological limi-

tations. In this study we aimed to remedy this

using data from an Australian panel study that

contains information on domestic outsourcing,

housework time, and subjective time pressure.

The longitudinal data allow us to use modeling

techniques that take account of selection effects,

possible reverse causality, and unobserved het-

erogeneity. These include xed effect panel

regression models and simultaneous equation

models for panel data (using the percentage of

individuals in the respondent’s state of residence

who outsource housework as an instrument).

1224 Journal of Marriage and Family 78 (October 2016): 1224–1236

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12321