Home Production and Gender Gap in Structural Change
Prof. Chaoran Chen
Associate Professor
Department of Economics
York University
This paper establishes an empirical link between home production by married females and
gender disparities in non-agricultural employment in developing countries. Building on these
findings, we extend the general equilibrium Roy model to incorporate the joint labor supply
decisions of rural married couples, accounting for gender wage discrimination and fixed entry
costs to non-agricultural employment. Our model fully explains the observed gender gap in
non-agricultural employment with relatively small size of gender wage discrimination. Both
within-household specialization and fixed entry costs are essential in driving this result. In
addition, enhancing public services that act as substitutes for home production can effectively
reduce this gap.
