There appear to be limited differences between employed and nonemployed wives in their use of strategies to relieve time pressures. Holding income and life-cycle stage constant, neither wives' employment nor recent entry into the labor force are significant determinants of the purchase or ownership of labor-saving durables, such as microwave ovens and dishwashers. Although working wives prepare fewer meals, if income or life cycle is held constant, working wives and nonworking wives are generally similar with respect to method of meal preparation and shopping behavior.

Strategies Used by Working and Nonworking Wives to Reduce Time Pressures

This study examines working-wife (WW) and nonworking-wife (NWW) family purchases of, and amount spent for, time-saving durables, other durables, hobby and recreation items, vacations, and college education. Size of total family income and whether the family moved recently to a different house in which they had some equity were important variables in the purchase decisions. Wife's labor force behavior, however, was not important in the purchase decisions. Income and assets, but not wife's labor force behavior, were significant in the expenditure decisions.

Working Wives and Major Family Expenditures

Contrary to predictions from the new household economics theory and heuristic thought, income earned by wives working full time did not increase the marginal propensity to consume food away from home. Tobit estimates of the same propensity from other income sources in married U.S. households in 1978 showed that income earned by part-time working wives and children, asset income, and transfer payments increased this propensity above that from husband's labor income. Whites had higher expenditures, higher marginal propensities to consume, and lower income elasticities for food away from home than nonwhites.

Working Wives and the Marginal Propensity to Consume Food Away from Home

The literature examining the relationship between consumer durables expenditures and wives' employment is analyzed. Several deficiencies in the literature are corrected in a revised model that is estimated with data from the 1977–1978 Survey of Consumer Expenditures. This article concludes that durables expenditures and wives' employment time are complements.

Durables and Wives' Employment Yet Again

In 1940 the labor force participation rate for married women, husband present, was 14 percent. By 1970 it had increased 26 percentage points to 40 percent. The supply and demand variables associated with this increase have been widely investigated. However, there has been ve'ry little research on the economic effects of wives' labor force participation. (See R. Agarwala and J. Drinkwater, Margaret Carroll, Robert Holbrook and Frank Stafford, Lucy Mallan and Jacob Mincer.) This paper analyzes two economic effects: the effect on the ratio of consumption to income (CIY) and the effect on the ratio of durable goods purchases to income (DurlY). The primary question addressed is: Controlling for total family income and several other variables, what are the differences (if any) in the ratios of CIY and DurlY for working-wife (W-W) and nonworking wife (N-W-W) families? Looked at in another way, the question may be rephrased: How do W-W families use wives' income?

Wives' Labor Force Behavior and Family Consumption Patterns

CONSUMERS' expenditure forms a major component of the Gross National Expenditure and the parameters of this function play a crucial role in the mechanism of income generation in a macro-model. Because of their importance, a considerable amount of care and attention should be devoted to the estimation of these parameters and their probable movement. This consideration becomes especially important in mediumand long-range forecasting because over a long-run horizon the consumer expenditure parameters may be strongly influenced by socio-economic factors such as female participation in the labour force, education level of the population, urbanization, etc. In this paper we make a beginning in the direction of estimating parameters of the consumption function which are shifting over time due to these socio-economic factors. The importance of taking into account the shifting parameters in a macro-equation can also be emphasized from another point of view. It is becoming increasingly clear that macroeconomic analysis and policy will be seriously inadequate in a medium-run horizon unless attention is paid to changes in the composition of aggregative units. One line of attack is, of course, to have disaggregative models. However, quite often the detailed time-series data are not available on all the variables concerned. Even when the data are available, they are somewhat unreliable at a disaggregate level and in statistical estimation the ratio of noise to signal tends to be high in such disaggregate equations. Moreover, there are often some overall macro-constraints which are difficult to take into account in disaggregate models. It is, therefore, desirable as a supplement (if not as an alternative) to the disaggregated models, to have a macro-equation capture the compositional effects as far as possible. Our DaDer is one example of an attempt to capture the influence of changing population composition in a macro-equation, by introducing shifting parameters. For purposes of estimating these shifting parameters, we make combined use of cross-section and time-series data. The lagged reaction path of consumption due to income and price changes is also considered, and we use the Almon technique (1965) for this purpose.

Consumption Functions with Shifting Parameters Due to Socio-Economic Factors

The development of higher quality road infrastructure in developing countries improves ride quality but also enables greater driving speeds. Similarly, a growing middle class allows more people to afford personal vehicles but increases the number of drivers on the road. Improved mobility has historically been associated with economic growth, and its impact on traffic safety has been explored in high-income countries. However, the behavior of road users and vehicle ownership characteristics in middle-income countries are substantively different than those in high-income countries. This study explores the relationship between mobility and traffic safety at a region-wide level in India, a middle-income country. The results show that increasing lengths of National Highways are associated with an improvement in traffic safety while increasing lengths of all other types of roads and total number of motor vehicles are both associated with a deterioration in traffic safety. This study shows that safe roadway infrastructure has a huge role in enhancing overall safety even in countries with high vehicle heterogeneity, lack of driver education, and weak enforcement. This study’s contribution should guide decision-makers in other middle-income countries to invest in traffic safety measures alongside any investments in higher quality road infrastructure.

R. Agarwala

Papers

Consumption Functions with Shifting Parameters Due to Socio-Economic Factors

Role of High-Speed Roads and Vehicle Ownership on Traffic Fatalities in India