Worktime Regulations and Spousal Labor Supply

We study interdependencies in spousal labor supply by exploiting thedesign of the French workweek reduction, which introduced exogenousvariation in one's spouse's labor supply, at constant earnings.Treated employees work on average two hours less per week.Husbands of treated women respond by reducing their labor supplyby about half an hour, consistent with substantial leisure complementarity,and specifically cut the nonusual component of theirworkweek, leaving usual hours unchanged. Women's response totheir husband's treatment is instead weak and rarely statisticallysignificant, possibly due to heavier constraints in the organization oftheir workweek.