VALUING LOST HOME PRODUCTION OF DUAL EARNER COUPLES.

Using a life-cycle model in which women divide their time between home and market work, we establish a link between retirement wealth and the value of forgone home production. We use data from the Health and Retirement Study to estimate the model's parameters and adjust the growth rate of GDP to reflect reductions in non-market output. We find that the value of forgone home production is modest - about 25 percent of women's measured earnings.