Female Labor Participation and the Allocation of Household Expenditure

We study the influence of the female labor participation in the household expenditure allocation, considering the joint decision between consumption and leisure. The theoretical framework is a collective model in which the agents are the man and the woman and it is assumed that the result of their decisions is Pareto-efficient. The change in expenditure-elasticities depending on the female labor participation allows us to classify goods as complements (substitutes) of the woman’s leisure if the elasticity is lower (higher) if the woman works than if she does not work. The sign of the effect of individual labor incomes on consumption allows us to classify goods in two spheres: the masculine sphere if the power of the man increases the consumption of the good and the feminine sphere in the contrary case.