Informational Ambiguity and Survey Bias: Husbands' and Wives' Reports on Their Contribution to Their Families

The present study uses panel data models to control unobserved characteristics and to investigate how the presence of spouses in interviews influences reports regarding housework and earnings contributions. Both husbands and wives relatively overreport their housework contributions but do not overre...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social indicators research 2013-05, Vol.111 (3), p.713-724
Main Author: Tao, Hung-Lin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ambiguity
Bias
Couples
Data models
Datasets
Earnings
Economic surveys
Families & family life
Family (Sociological Unit)
Gender differences
Gender Issues
Guilt
History, theory and methodology
Households
Housekeeping
Housework
Human Geography
Husbands
Income
Interviews
Labor
Marriage Counseling
Methodology
Microeconomics
Panel data
Partners
Polls & surveys
Psychological Patterns
Public Health
Quality of Life Research
Ratios
Salaries
Sexuality. Marriage. Family relations
Social Indicators
Social research
Social Sciences
Sociological research
Sociology
Sociology of the family. Age groups
Spouses
Studies
Survey sampling
Surveys
Time Management
Wives
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Description
Summary:The present study uses panel data models to control unobserved characteristics and to investigate how the presence of spouses in interviews influences reports regarding housework and earnings contributions. Both husbands and wives relatively overreport their housework contributions but do not overreport their earnings contributions. The amount of time spent doing housework lacks a precise measure and involves more subjective estimates than earnings reports. It is argued that the ambiguity of the housework contribution mitigates the guilt felt by overreporting the housework contribution. In addition, without controlling for unobserved characteristics, OLS models overstate the influence of the presence of spouses in the interviews.
ISSN:0303-8300
1573-0921
DOI:10.1007/s11205-012-0029-5