Working Wives and Dual-Earner Families.

• Author: Whaples, Robert

A century ago, only one married woman in twenty participated in the labor market. In 1940, fewer than one married woman in seven was working outside the home. Today more than half are. Because of this, the "dual-earner family is now more prevalent than the one-earner, with husband and wife employed in almost 60 percent of all married-couple families. Only 17 percent of married couples are one-earner, with the rest having other or no earners". In Working Wives and Dual-Earner Families, Rose Rubin and Bobye Piney seek to comprehensively analyze the differences between dual-earner and one-earner families. They review a vast body of economic theory and empirical evidence, adding new empirical findings of their own. Chapters are given to labor force participation, tax policies, earnings levels, expenditure patterns, wealth levels, and the distribution of income.

The most solid contribution of the book is in laying out the economic theories surrounding dual-earner families in a simple, straight-forward manner and in reviewing previous research on the subject. These sections will be valuable to students and other newcomers to the field. Among the important findings reported are that for "most retired wives who have been in the labor force, the 50 percent of the husband's (Social Security) benefits is higher than their own earned benefits ... In 1982 only 40 percent of ever-married women received benefits derived from their own work and contributions" to Social Security; that most of the differences between the spending patterns of one-earner and dual-earner families relate to income level rather than to wife's work status ("most researchers have found significant differences only in expenditures for child care and transportation"); that the 1990 median income of one-earner families, $30,265, was only two-thirds that of dual-earner families, $46,777, and the gap is widening; and that for a woman earning $20,000 per year, whose husband earns $30,000, net earnings (gross earnings minus taxes and work-related expenses such as transportation and child care) are as little as 35 percent of gross earnings when there are two children in day care.

The book's greatest weakness is its lack of ambition to cover more ground. The authors are not very serious about their claim to examine historical trends. For example, the work of Claudia Goldin (e.g., Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women, New York: Oxford University Press, 1990) is...