A Disaggregated View of Household Production Trends

Abstract

The shift of working time from the household to the market, or marketization, was one of the most important changes in the US economy. This paper estimates US household production (HP) by product and examines the marketization of these products. I find that most HP products show little marketization despite a decline in HP's importance relative to GDP. Only cooking had significant marketization between 1965 and 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic led to a demarketization of most products, consistent with market options being disrupted.