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Wife's employment and allocation of resources in families with children
Ann C. Foster and Craig J. Kreisler
Ann C. Foster is an economist in the Office of Prices and Living Conditions, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Craig J. Kreisler is a statistician in the Cooperative Studies Program, Department of Veterans Affairs. Email: foster.ann@bls.gov or craig.kreisler@va.gov.
The time pressures faced by working wives have led economists to predict that market goods and services would be substituted for those produced at home. Current Population Survey data show that, in 59 percent of married-couple families with children under 18 in 2009, both the wife and the husband worked for pay.1 This article examines and presents spending data from the 2009 Consumer Expenditure Survey (CE) and time use data from the 2009 American Time Use Survey (ATUS) in order to obtain a better picture of resource allocation patterns of husband-wife families with children under 18 years and with a husband employed full time.
1 See "Employment Characteristics of Families—2010," USDL-11-0396 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, July 22, 2010), http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/famee_03242011.pdf.
American Time Use Survey
Consumer Expenditure Survey
Household expenditures on children, 2007–08.—Sept. 2010.
Household-food-expenditure patterns: a cluster analysis.—Apr. 2007.
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