Ronald Schettkat

Ronald Schettkat, professor of economics at Utrecht University, The Netherlands, will compare the amount of time Americans and Germans spend at their jobs and on household activities. Schettkat shows that although Americans spend more hours at their jobs than Germans, they spend less time on household production, which includes childcare, housework, and meal preparation. Schettkat traces the differences to the fact that the percentage of high-skilled women workers is much higher in the United States than in Europe, which creates a bigger pay off to labor force participation by married women and a greater demand for household services.