Home Location Choices and the Gender Commute Gap

Abstract

Using administrative records of home mortgages in Beijing, we show that dual-income households systematically choose to buy homes that are closer to the wife’s workplace. The wife’s commute from the newly purchased home is on average 11 percent shorter by distance than the husband’s. We estimate a discrete home location choice model and find that households derive substantially larger disutility from the wife’s commute than from the husband’s. Through the lens of a simple collective household model, we show evidence that gender commute gap reflects the intrahousehold division of labor and relative bargaining power.