Technology, Institutions and Allocation of Time in Swedish Households 1920-1990
(2008) Final Conference of the Marie Curie Research Training Network- Abstract
- The modernisation of Swedish households during the twentieth century prompted a considerable productivity growth in household production, which reduced the time input for a fixed volume of routine household work by about 35 per cent 1920-1990. Much of that time was gradually transferred to the labour market, but no evidence can be found for an increase in leisure time. What has been termed a “Cowan paradox” appears in the Swedish data: the output of household services increased significantly with productivity-enhancing technical change. This was, however, the case only in households where small children constituted an impediment to labour market entry. Increased returns to market work induced women who did not face this restriction to... (More)
- The modernisation of Swedish households during the twentieth century prompted a considerable productivity growth in household production, which reduced the time input for a fixed volume of routine household work by about 35 per cent 1920-1990. Much of that time was gradually transferred to the labour market, but no evidence can be found for an increase in leisure time. What has been termed a “Cowan paradox” appears in the Swedish data: the output of household services increased significantly with productivity-enhancing technical change. This was, however, the case only in households where small children constituted an impediment to labour market entry. Increased returns to market work induced women who did not face this restriction to allocate more time to the labour market from the mid-1940s. A set of new formal and informal institutions associated with the family eventually redefined the concept of “small children” and so shifted the position of homemaker from being a more or less permanent status of some women to a clearly temporary position of most women. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/1388492
- author
- Svensson, Lars LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2008
- type
- Contribution to conference
- publication status
- unpublished
- subject
- keywords
- Household technologies, Family policy, Time allocation, Labour supply
- conference name
- Final Conference of the Marie Curie Research Training Network
- conference dates
- 2008-09-26 - 2008-09-28
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 4e11cfec-0307-4701-a676-e8b2c0359f88 (old id 1388492)
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-04 13:43:44
- date last changed
- 2018-11-21 21:15:53
@misc{4e11cfec-0307-4701-a676-e8b2c0359f88,
abstract = {{The modernisation of Swedish households during the twentieth century prompted a considerable productivity growth in household production, which reduced the time input for a fixed volume of routine household work by about 35 per cent 1920-1990. Much of that time was gradually transferred to the labour market, but no evidence can be found for an increase in leisure time. What has been termed a “Cowan paradox” appears in the Swedish data: the output of household services increased significantly with productivity-enhancing technical change. This was, however, the case only in households where small children constituted an impediment to labour market entry. Increased returns to market work induced women who did not face this restriction to allocate more time to the labour market from the mid-1940s. A set of new formal and informal institutions associated with the family eventually redefined the concept of “small children” and so shifted the position of homemaker from being a more or less permanent status of some women to a clearly temporary position of most women.}},
author = {{Svensson, Lars}},
keywords = {{Household technologies; Family policy; Time allocation; Labour supply}},
language = {{eng}},
title = {{Technology, Institutions and Allocation of Time in Swedish Households 1920-1990}},
year = {{2008}},
}