ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the evolution of household models. It discusses the impact of Gary Becker’s “new home economics” on development thinking, and introduces contemporary feminist bargaining models that are presently in vogue in gender and development circles. The chapter examines the unspoken assumptions about sexuality that are deployed in feminist economic constructions of the household. Becker’s version of the unitary model assumes a gendered productive/unproductive dichotomy in which men labor outside of the home, while women engage in what Becker refers to as the “leisure” activities of care in the household. The adoption of intrahousehold bargaining models has effected a significant shift in the way that development economics imagines the household and gender relations within it. It has made women’s reproductive labor and conflicts around domestic work more visible. It also challenges the implications of previous household models with regard to limiting women to the reproductive sphere.
