Social norms, gender identity, and high-earning wives’ housework behavior in Japan: An identity economics framework

This article takes an identity economics perspective to examine the housework behavior of Japanese wives of couples where both spouses work full-time, based on panel data from the Japanese Panel Survey of Consumers in 2000–2008. First, we show that Japanese wives are reluctant to reduce their housework time even when they out-earn their husbands. Second, there is no negative linear relationship between wives’ absolute income and the time they allocate to unpaid work. Last, we find no evidence that low-earning wives reduce their time spent on housework more rapidly than high-earning wives in Japan