Testing the collective model of household labor supply: Evidence from China

This paper tests the collective model against the unitary model by estimating the labor supply of both the husband and wife. Using data from a developing country, China, we reject the hypothesis that distribution factors have no effect on household time allocation decisions. On the other hand, we cannot reject restrictions implied by the collective model. Thus the unitary model is not supported while the collective model gains credence in this study. Our findings suggest that the traditional patriarchalism in Chinese families is giving ways to power sharing between spouses.