The Comparative Advantage of Sexual Divisions of Labor Essay -- Econom

Historical Perspectives on the relative Advantage of Sexual Divisions of LaborIn modern microeconomic models of the household, iodin comm nonwithstanding sees a division of labor between the husband and wife predicated on a comparative degree advantage in the market or the household respectively. The idea is that women are somehow less fit for hightail it in the marketplace while they are innately superior at the domestic tasks of cooking, cleaning, and childrearing. There are two prevailing perspectives on the mechanism of this comparative advantage. The first argues that women are somehow biologically fitted to domestic tasks. This was original for Adam Smith who byword the social structures of society arising out of a biological need. Malthus, on the other hand, saw the same biological necessity as operating in opposition to the social structures that arose to keep the pressures of commonwealth in check. The second perspective argues that a comparative advantage is a socially constructed idea and not rooted in the biological write up of the race. Martineau in her story Cousin Marshall delineated the life of what she saw as a virtuous and noble woman. Virginia Woolf, however, decried what she saw as the drear poverty of women in A Room of Ones Own. Her solution, however, only served to further separate the spheres of men and women. Finally, Charlotte Perkins Gilman similarly objected to the state of women in Women and economics and ultimately proposed a society that abolished any division of labor on sexual lines. None of these authors seem to contest the presence of a comparative advantage in the division of labor as their societies stand. However this does not imply that all the authors agreed on the exact features of this... ...here there were no gendered distinctions in defense of women. One could argue that our modern society is a point along the way to attaining Gilmans utopian solution. More likely, however, we arrive at ma de little progress and Gilmans solutions still feel innovational and strange.ReferencesGilman, C (1998). Women and Economics A Study of the Economic Relation amid Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution. Berkeley University of atomic number 20 Press.Malthus, Thomas R (1798). Essay on the Principle of Population Electronic Version. Retrieved phratry 19, 2003, from http//etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/ public/MalPopu.htmlMartineau, H (1832). Illustrations of Political Economy No. VIII. capital of the United Kingdom Charles Fox.Smith, A (1766). Lectures on Jurisprudence. Oxford Oxford University Press.Woolf, V (1929). A Room of Ones Own. London Harcourt.