The Impact of Non-Labor Income Given Job Heterogeneity on Household Time Allocation: The Evidence from China

Abstract

This paper proposes a theoretical framework based on new household economic theories. A dataset from the 2006 China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) is used. Given heterogeneity in major family members’ jobs, the effect of non-labor income on household time allocation is discussed under two scenarios: jobs with flexible work hours and jobs with fixed work hours in the market. Based on the nature of the employer the major family member works for, employers can be categorized into four categories: government-owned, family contract, privately-owned, and foreign-funded. Each of the four categories is used for dissecting the data into different sets for analysis by category. The results imply that job heterogeneity is significantly correlated to household time allocation. An increase in non-labor income results in a decrease in the time allocated to housework for all households. However, leisure time is allocated differently among different households due to job heterogeneity. An increase in non-labor income leads to less leisure time for households working for government-owned or foreign-funded enterprises, and more leisure time for households working for family contract or privately-owned enterprises.

Keywords

non-labor income / job heterogeneity / time allocation / housework time / leisure time

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2014 Higher Education Press and Brill