Dear Agony Aunt, who should raise my child?

I recently came across this agony aunt letter from slate.com, where the writer is asking for advice on who should do more of the childcare. I'm sure the problem is a very common one and goes like this:

Currently, the spouse who makes less money is the primary caregiver for 45-plus of the 60 hours, and does most of the day-to-day cleaning (we have a housekeeper who comes once a week). The spouse who makes more money says this is a fair division of labor because (1) they are doing their fair share by contributing 10 times more money to the family budget, and (2) child care and housekeeping costs are greater than the amount that is being earned by the lower-earning spouse; therefore, the lower-earning spouse’s job does not contribute to the family’s well-being. 

According to the higher-earning spouse, the lower-paying spouse’s job should be considered an intense and impressive hobby, like training for a triathlon, but it contributes nothing to the family’s well-being, so doing extra child care and cleaning is that partner’s main contribution to the family. According to the lower-earning spouse, they work just as hard as (if not harder than) the other one, and it is only a matter of luck that the higher-paying spouse makes more money, so they should split child care duties equally. This is the source of endless fighting, and we both are starting to resent each other a lot. Is there an objectively correct way for how we should be dividing child care duties?

I take issue with a lot of this, as I'm sure many of you would know. First of all, the claim that the lower-earning spouse's job contributes nothing to family well-being assumes that:

• the lower-earning spouse's job does not contribute to the lower-earning spouse's happiness; or
• assuming that the job makes the lower-earning spouse happier, that their happiness is not included in the family's overall well-being; and
• that the child and the higher-earning spouse derive no utility from the lower-earning spouse being happier.

The fact that the current division of labour is the source of endless fighting is already an indication that the family wellbeing is suffering from this type of division of labour. 

Secondly, it is dangerous to adopt market wage rates as the deciding factor when trying to value your spouse's time, and the value of non-market work.

Should your market wage rate determine who does what in the family home? Or are there other considerations, specific to your family and your child and spouse's wellbeing that should trump what the market signals are? Your family is a home, not a marketplace. Why should forces outside your home - primarily the wage rate which is shaped by a million other job matches, market imperfections and institutional settings, be the overriding factor of how you structure household production?

Furthermore, non-market work, such as childcare and cleaning, isn't worthless - as many people seem to think - it's just not priced. People can't rely on a market price to value this type of work because for once, there isn't one! And in the absence of a market price, people are perhaps unable to decide how they might intrinsically value this type of work. If you think that keeping the house in order is important, if you think that spending time raising your child is more precious than diamonds, then the value of this kind of work is going to be higher than even what the higher-earning spouse is earning from the market. This will inform a different division of household labour, where the higher-earning spouse (rationally) takes time out of their work to contribute to household production. 

If the lower-earning spouse derives happiness from working and their family is happier for it, then they will also rationally reduce their childcare hours and increase their work hours.

Of course, if you think that market work is inherently more valuable than any kind of utility-enhancing non-market work, then you would rationally leave the housework to whoever commands less market income. Ideally, this would mean getting someone who can't earn any market income to raise your children, such a family could increase efficiency by:

• getting someone retired to raise their child (e.g. grandparents),
• getting one child to raise the other (before the older child reaches working age),
• if slavery wasn't illegal, using an indentured servant to raise your child (such a family might argue that they're morally opposed to slavery, but they would be rationally for it, if it was available).

The logical extension of this is that when the higher-earning spouse is retired or no longer commands any market income, they should prepare to be subject to the whims of everyone else in their family who does. The value of their time is now at the bottom of the pecking order, and they should ideally indenture themselves to every other income-earning member of their family in order to increase the family's wellbeing.

But enough of market-based arguments. I believe that as soon as one spouse thinks the division of household labour is unequal then it's time to change it. Inequality is the beginning of resentment and disrespect, which may be the beginning of the end. A spouse who believes their partner is not equally contributing to the household will begin to resent them. A spouse who believes their partner's job is simply a hobby will begin to disrespect them. Both feelings have no place in healthy relationships, and while I understand that many people can and do live in discontented relationships, that doesn't mean you should.