Adam Smith Business School

In a simple household model where commuting time is a choice variable and gender-conforming social norms may affect the utility from the household public good, we derive testable implications on commuting behaviour and labour supply across household types by sexual orientation, to assess the role of these norms in household decision-making and gender labour market inequalities. Using the American Community Survey 2008-2019, we estimate that women in same-sex couples have a longer commute to work than working women in different-sex couples, whereas the commute to work of men in same-sex couples is shorter than the one of working men in different-sex couples, also after checking for demographic characteristics, partner’s characteristics, location, fertility, and marital status. These differences among men and women amount to 50%, and 100%, respectively, of the gender commuting gap estimated in the literature, and are particularly stark among married couples with children. Within couples, gaps in commuting time are also significantly smaller in same-sex couples, and labour supply disparities mimic the commuting ones. We interpret these differences as evidence that it is gender-conforming social norms that lead women in different-sex couples into jobs with a shorter commute and fewer hours worked while their male partners/spouses hold jobs with a longer commute and more hours worked, reinforcing gender inequalities. 

Biography

Sonia Oreffice is a Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics of the University of Exeter, and an Editor of the Review of Economics of the Household. Before joining Exeter in September 2018, she worked at the University of Surrey, Universidad de Alicante, CCNY-CUNY, and Clemson University. She obtained her PhD in Economics from the University of Chicago in 2004, and her BA in Economics at the Universita' di Venezia (Italy) in 1998. Her research interests are in labour economics, family economics, marriage market matching, health economics, and applied microeconomics.