**imperfect information, and heterogeneity in environments of high unemployment, high nonparticipation, job instability, wage disparity, and uneven opportunities among groups** . To explain the Roma’s decisions on those margins, we are extrapolating from marriage formation and we use a unitary model for a married couple. We demonstrate that the predictions of our dynamic model can account for the multiple variables underlying spouses’ decision making on time allocation, labor supply, and wages, for couples with and without children.<sup>4</sup>

Previous Unitary Labor Household Search Models studying spouses’ labor market decisions considered only employment and nonemployment labor market status with health insurance (Dey and Flinn (2008)), and sometimes with multiple locations (Guler, Guvenen, and Violante (2012). Flabbi and Mabli’s (2018) model included the participation decision (extensive margin), on-the-job search, parttime or full-time jobs (intensive margin), and an exogenous fertility shock. Choi (2018) studied parental leave policies and labor supply. Our model is an extension of the work by Flabbi and Mabli (2018). We expand the comprehension of gender gaps and household decisions by introducing for each spouse continuous time allocation between leisure and home production, while still allowing job offers to be part time and full time.

**The results from the RRS suggest a strong gender specialization. If in a given household a spouse has a job, usually it is because the husband is working. Also, data from the time usage module reveal that females on average devote more time to home production** . For instance, wives reported spending 34.7 percent of their time on home production<sup>5</sup> when no children are present, and a slightly higher amount when children are present (39.4 percent). Husbands reported much lower shares, spending 22.4 and 22.2 percent of their time on home production, respectively. Also, in the 35.2 percent of Roma households where at least one spouse works, both spouses work in only 2.0 percent of households, and only the husband works in 28.3 percent. To describe the spouses’ behavior where only one spouse has a job, Guler, Guvenen, and Violante (2012) described the _breadwinner cycle_ as the process where unemployment spells and accepted wages are a result of the insurance that joint labor search provides against each spouse’s life shocks. In this sense, the couples’ labor market behavior is another source of labor friction that a neoclassical model can hardly explain. Following Flabbi and Mabbli (2018), this paper expands spouses’ joint decisions regarding employment, unemployment, and nonparticipation.

**These gender discrepancies will be incorporated into the model as follows** . The household maximizes intertemporal utility that depends on consumption, leisure of each spouse, and the home production level. The household utility includes parameters that weight how much the household values each one of its components. Home production is an increasing function of spouses’ time allocation on it and spouses’ productivity. The model includes an exogenous rate that measures when the household has children, and when they leave the household. Regarding the labor market, the model includes arrival

> 4 In the past, for static situations, the unitary model was rejected because of its unrealistic predictions on spouses’ resource optimization.

> 5 Home production time is defined as time spent by a household member on non-commercialized activities aiming to produce goods and services for himself/herself or another household member inside the household (laundry, cooking, childcare, taking care of other members in the household). Leisure is defined as time spent on entertainment and private activities without the aim of producing (dancing, sleeping, eating, spiritual and religious activities). Working is the reported time spent on paid employment or activities outside the household in exchange for something (wages, earnings from self-employment, nonpecuniary payments).

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