Intra-Household Decision-Making: New Evidence from the Innovation Sample of the German Socioeconomic Panel

Abstract

Using data from a new survey we designed for the Innovation Sample of the German Socioeconomic Panel (GSOEP), we document the relationship between marital sorting and intra-household decision-making, with a focus on consumption allocations and employment changes due to having children. Our rst main nding is that most households in our sample (72%) split private consumption equally between partners, but a household is more likely to allocate more private consumption to the female partner when she is at least as educated as the male partner. Second, our data indicates there is a substantial gender discrepancy in career disruption due to childbearing: more than 50% of women experience a career disruption around the time of childbirth, compared to only 5% of men. However, women are signicantly less likely to experience a disruption when they are more educated than their male partners. We establish a link between both facts, suggesting that women with a higher labor market attachment after having children are also more likely to benet from a higher share of household resources later on. Our results suggest that marriage market sorting shapes intra-household decision making in important ways.