Does home economics education make men cook? : Evidence from a natural experiment

• Educational policy has two objectives: foster children’s learning in academic subjects and socialize them into citizens. Evaluating whether these objectives are met in the long-term is notoriously difficult, since society is noisy (statistically speaking). In the absence of randomized controlled trials of school systems, social scientists have increasingly come to utilize natural experiments. Using data from five rounds of the Swedish Level-of-Living Survey (LNU) we analyse specialized and generalized educational effects on self-reported housework participation of adult Swedish men. Specifically, we study potential effects of the content of a given school subject, Home economics (HE), and from education overall.The Swedish gender gap in housework is comparatively small, and in this context sociological research has discussed men’s cooking and childcare involvement in particular. Two unique features of mid-1900s Swedish school reform could have influenced this: the early introduction of HE for boys and the successive transformation from a 7-year folkskola to a 9-year grundskola, including a decade-long assessment period. First, based on information in curricula and government reports, we establish whether HE was mandatory for boys. If so, did it contain practical cooking and childcare or mostly theoretical schooling? Second, we identify when Swedish municipalities partook in the assessment period and when they implemented the 9-year grundskola. Connecting this to (1) the LNU participants’ year of birth and (2) the municipality they grew up in, we allocate them to treatment and comparison groups. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we analyse (potential) differences in time reported on a selection of housework activities.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Kostvetenskap

Food, Nutrition and Dietetics

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)