Does household labour impact market wages?

This study investigates the hypothesis that women's greater home responsibi lities contribute directly to their lower wages because household labour ti me reduces their market effort. OLS regressions show a significant negative effect of household labour hours on market wages for white married women, but not for other groups of women (single, black) or men. Regressions corre cting for endogeneity of household hours in the wage equation or heterogene ity among women indicate there is no significant effect of household labour hours on wages for any demographic group. These results suggest that the e vidence in support of the hypothesis is not compelling.