We investigate the value of time as a resource (VOTR) and the value of childcare time saving (VOCTS) for a married couple with children by life cycle stage. Extending the framework of DeSerpa (1971), we develop a novel intertemporal utility-maximization model that can represent trade-offs within an individual and within a couple between different activities in their life stages based on a household lifetime equilibrium, and we derive wives’ and husbands’ time values when their first child is of pre-school age and after their first child reaches school age. Applying the model to the 2004–2018 Japan Household Panel Survey, we analyze couples in two life stages to empirically find the value of time by gender. The results show that the wives’ average VOTR is greater than 4400 yen/hour with statistical significance when their first child is of pre-school age; the value, however, drastically drops to around 400 yen/hour with statistical insignificance after their first child reaches school age. Conversely, the magnitudes of the husbands’ VOTRs do not change much in different life stages. In the background mechanisms, the wives’ high and low VOTRs reflect their short and long work and commute hours, respectively, whereas the husbands reduce their work and commute hours only slightly over time. For the dual-income households that only spend the minimum required time on childcare, VOCTS is statistically insignificant when their first child is of pre-school age but is greater than 28,000 yen/hour after their first child reaches school age. Using the estimated time values for urban and transport policy simulations, we find that enabling work flexibility could help households increase welfare more compared to transportation improvement and childcare support services.

中文翻译：

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基于跨期家庭效用最大化模型，按生命阶段衡量已婚夫妇的时间价值


我们按生命周期阶段调查了有孩子的已婚夫妇的时间作为资源的价值 (VOTR) 和节省育儿时间的价值 (VOCTS)。扩展 DeSerpa (1971) 的框架，我们开发了一种新颖的跨期效用最大化模型，该模型可以基于家庭终生均衡来表示个人和夫妇在其生命阶段的不同活动之间的权衡，并且我们推导出妻子的以及丈夫在第一个孩子学龄前和达到学龄后的时间价值观。我们将该模型应用于 2004-2018 年日本家庭追踪调查，分析了两个人生阶段的夫妇，以实证方式发现不同性别的时间价值。结果表明，当第一个孩子处于学龄前阶段时，妻子们的平均VOTR大于4400日元/小时，具有统计学意义；然而，在他们的第一个孩子达到学龄后，这一价值急剧下降至 400 日元/小时左右，在统计上微不足道。相反，丈夫的 VOTR 的大小在不同的人生阶段变化​​不大。在后台机制中，妻子的高和低 VOTR 分别反映了她们工作和通勤时间的长短和长短，而丈夫随着时间的推移仅略微减少了工作和通勤时间。对于只花费最低要求的育儿时间的双收入家庭，当他们的第一个孩子在学龄前时，VOCTS在统计上微不足道，但在他们的第一个孩子达到学龄后，VOCTS大于28,000日元/小时。使用城市和交通政策模拟的估计时间值，我们发现与交通改善和儿童保育支持服务相比，实现工作灵活性可以帮助家庭更多地增加福利。