Household Income, Women's Earnings, and Spending on Household Services, 1980–2010
| Author | Allison Roberts,Sabino Kornrich |
| Date | 01 February 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12450 |
| Published date | 01 February 2018 |
S K A R Emory University
Household Income, Women’s Earnings, and
Spending on Household Services, 1980–2010
The authors investigated changes in household
outsourcing, the practice of spending on ser-
vices that replace household labor, from 1980
to 2010. During this time, women’s labor force
participation, increased and economic, house-
hold bargaining, and time availability theories
predict increased spending during this period.
To test these predictions, the authors used
data on spending on housekeeping, day care,
babysitting and nannies, gardening and lawn
services, eating out and pre-preparedfoods from
the 1980–2010 Consumer Expenditure Surveys
using 327,903 household-quarters from the
interview survey and 86,877 household-weeks
from the diary survey. The results indicate that
changes in income predicted increasesin house-
keeping, child care, and gardening services.
Changes in household characteristics predicted
little change in food outsourcing, although food
outsourcing did increase. Changes in women’s
earnings predicted little change in most out-
sourcing. The authors conclude the article
with a discussion of the changing context for
outsourcing.
The study of spending on services to replace
household labor, commonly referred to as house-
hold outsourcing, has drawn more attention in
recent years. For some scholars, outsourcing
Department of Sociology, Emory University, 1555 Dickey
Drive, 225 TarbuttonHall, Atlanta, GA 30322
(kornrich@gmail.com).
Key Words: child care, family economics, outsourcing,
spending.
offers the potential to explain patterns of house-
hold labor; increased outsourcing might explain
why women’s houseworkhas declined (Bianchi,
Milkie, Sayer, & Robinson, 2000; Bittman, Rice,
& Wajcman,2003; Craig, Perales, Vidal, & Bax-
ter, 2016; Gupta, 2006, 2007; Killewald, 2011;
Milkman, Reese, & Roth, 1998). For others, out-
sourcing captures the commodication of the
home: It represents the movement of work across
the boundary between home and market (Cowan,
1983; Hochschild, 2003). In either case, a key
question is how spending has changed over time.
A common expectation is that household
outsourcing should have increased, particularly
during the last third of the 20th century. This
expectation is drawn from bargaining theories
of outsourcing and housework that suggest
women’s labor force participation reduces time
in housework because women use their earn-
ings to purchase replacements for household
labor from the market (Bianchi et al., 2000;
Bittman et al., 2003; Gupta, 2006; Killewald
& Gough, 2010; though see Killewald, 2011).
Women’s greater earnings, autonomy, and
increased time constraints might mean that
households spend more to purchase services
that can replace women’s household labor, most
notably cooking, child care, and cleaning.
Other researchers argue that some house-
holds resist the commodication of household
labor because they prefer to perform labor them-
selves, as they nd market substitutes inade-
quate (Cowan, 1983; Kornrich, 2012). A similar
argument suggests that households have prob-
lems with the trust and coordination of outsourc-
ing (Treas & De Ruijter, 2008). Technological
150 Journal of Marriage and Family 80 (February 2018): 150–165
DOI:10.1111/jomf.12450
Spending on Household Services, 1980–2010 151
change and the increased availability of domes-
tic technology can also make household labor
more efcient and reduce the incentives to out-
source (Gershuny, 2000; Greenwood, Seshadri,
& Yorukoglu, 2005).
Scholarly expectations are thus divided about
recent trends over time in outsourcing of house-
hold labor. Existing cross-sectional research
nds that women’s income is positively linked
to spending, suggesting growth in spending as
more women enter the labor force. However,
no longitudinal research has examined the fre-
quency or intensity of household outsourcing
over time to track changes in family patterns of
spending. This article assesses changes in out-
sourcing from 1980 to 2010 and adds to existing
research in two ways. First, we use multiple
measures of outsourcing over 30 years to assess
changes. We examine standard outsourcing
measures such as housekeeping and gardening
or lawn service and add more detailed measures
of food use (including pre-prepared foods) and
measures of child care. Second, we investigate
how household characteristics contribute to
growth or decline in outsourcing over time. We
ask how changes in household characteristics
such as women’s earnings or total household
income predict changes in household spending.
The article proceeds with a discussion of
existing research on household outsourcing.
We then show patterns of outsourcing over
time before turning to results from decom-
position analyses. The results suggest that
increases in outsourcing were modest during the
late 20th century. We next use decomposition
analysis to analyze the source of household
changes in spending. Increases in income pre-
dicted increases in outsourcing, but the actual
increases in outsourcing were smaller than
predicted because the effects of household
characteristics weakened over time. Women’s
earnings measured in various ways predicted
little change in the probability of most types of
outsourcing. These ndings suggest a recon-
sideration of the role of women’s labor force
participation for the commodication of the
household.
I, B, O
Household outsourcing typically refers to spend-
ing on services that might replace household
labor, including eating out, housework, garden-
ing, and other services. Whether services replace
or supplement work, the purchase of services is a
shift in who performs work, as work moves from
household members to the market. Workcan also
change location. For example, when food pro-
ducers began to can vegetables, there was a shift
in both the individuals who performed the work
and the location of the work (Cowan, 1983; Ger-
shuny, 2000; Strasser, 1982).
We focus on outsourcing as work that is
often still done by household members but
sometimes replaced by spending; this includes
female-typed tasks such as housekeeping ser-
vices, child care, and restaurant or pre-prepared
foods and male-typed tasks such as yard work
and gardening. For each service, there is at
least a partial movement of work from an indi-
vidual in the home to someone else, although
not all involve a shift in location (because
housekeeping occurs in the home, as does the
nal consumption and partial preparation of a
range of pre-prepared foods). We examine child
care because it shifts work from a household
individual. Although time spent with a child
may not be considered “work,” child care also
brings additional time in cooking and cleaning.
Men and women have different perspectives
about child care, with men expressing more
appreciation of child work than other household
labor (Sullivan, 2011). However, outcomes
are comparable to other types of household
labor, with men doing less child care than their
wives. Other major outsourcing studies have
also included child care (Bittman, Matheson,
& Meagher, 1999; Ehrenreich & Hochschild,
2003; Gershuny, 2000).
Broadly, theories of outsourcing argue that
households use these services so that they can
substitute money for time by purchasing some-
one else’s time (Gershuny, 2000). Income, bar-
gaining, and household composition underlie
each of the more detailed theories we outline
later. These perspectives are at the foundation
of most research on the determinants of house-
hold outsourcing (e.g., Cohen, 1998; De Ruij-
ter, Treas, & Cohen, 2005; E. Jacobs, Shipp, &
Brown, 1989; Phipps & Burton, 1998; Treas &
De Ruijter, 2008).
Income-based theories of outsourcing
emphasize household resources and suggest
that households outsource when they have
high household income (Soberon-Ferrer &
Dardis, 1991; Wagner & Soberon-Ferrer,
1990). Thus, households use their income to
replace their time. The simplest version of this
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