Two essays examining the impact on married couples' earnings distributions of standardizing for differences in hours worked.

This thesis is comprised of two separate but related essays examining the impact of standardizing for differences in average annual household hours of paid labour, either across countries or over time, in comparing household earnings. Household earnings are commonly adjusted for differences in prices faced by households or differences in household size between earnings distributions. This thesis proposes an additional standardization on household earnings to adjust for differences in hours of paid labour which exist across countries, or over time periods. For example, the annual hours of paid employment reported in the 1995 OECD Employment Outlook show employees in the United States work on average 1,780 hours per year versus European countries such as the Netherlands where employees work an average of 1,395 hours per year.1 Chapter one examines the impact of standardizing for differences in hours worked on household earnings distributions across five OECD countries. Chapter two examines the impact of standardizing for differences in hours worked on household earnings distributions in Canada over the period of 1975 to 1994. Average annual household earnings and hours worked are examined at all vingtiles in the earnings distribution, and comparisons are then made across household earnings distributions.