Question

1.To what extent is the presumption that women have a comparative advantage in housework justified?
2.Explain under what conditions it would be rational for a woman who could earn more than her husband in the labor market to specialize (to some extent) in housework.
3 What is a “bargaining approach” to decision making? Why is this approach more realistic than the standard neoclassical model?

Answer 1

If we take house work on horizontal axis and labor market production on the vertical axis we can draw the PPF for a family with a husband and a wife where the possible combinations before kink indicates that Husband works in labor market while wife works at both sides. Points below the kink explain the combinations where wife performs only housework and husband does both

At kink, both specialize and work in respective areas/ The only case where Explain it would be rational for a woman who could earn more than her husband in the labor market to specialize in housework is when the combined indifference curve lies at this kink