(Un)Sustainability of the Time Devoted to Selected Housework—Evidence from Slovakia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Introduction: I would like to suggest that the authors could underline which knowledge gaps to be filled , along with the originality and novelty of this work, at the and of this section.

The literature review are extensive against a too short discussion on the empirical analysis. The structure can be rebalanced, keeping a clear focus linked on the empirical part.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The research paper’s stated objective is to expand knowledge about households seen as production units by emphasizing the substitution of work, e.g. time devoted to unpaid work activities with capital equipment, that is domestic appliances, and by specifying the limits of the research which is applied only at the level of Slovakia. The reasoning is sound and relies on the relevant representation of households as economic agents seen from both supply and demand side, and their corresponding decisions of participating in the labor market. The approach is relevant for the behavior of households, and how it is reflected in terms of wage and expectations related to provided work, and for the knowledge in the field of ergonomics at the microlevel.

The literature review covers the dominating strands in microeconomics and macroeconomics, and even the perspective of unorthodox, institutional economics, as regards work, households, family, traditions, and values. Nonetheless, this micro-level approach is heavily influenced by ergonomic principles, and less by the principles that should guide the main issue of concern, respective sustainability from both micro-and macro-level perspective.  Though dedicated to how the use of home appliances is indicative for the use of time in various types of households, that is households of single persons of both genders, and households of couples, it should have insisted more on the links with sustainability in overall terms, not only at one of the basic micro-levels regarding the impact on the time of men and women in various types of households (single, or partner/couple households) and the relevance for the macrolevel, for instance, in terms of energy consumption, or how home appliances, their production, use, demand, etc. influence consumption of sometimes non-renewable materials, recycling, and other macroeconomic perspectives relevant for sustainability overall, and Slovak policies in the field of sustainability, considering the current Green Deal perspective.

The methodological approach, the used descriptive statistics, analyses in minute detail the use of home appliances in single-man, single-woman, and couple households, and how the time dedicated to the unpaid households’ work is managed in these cases, by considering also the structure of households, age, and education level.

The choice of variables could be significant for the objectives of sustainability if translated from the microlevel of households to the macrolevel in terms of the use of various types of resources, and how savings’ regarding energy consumption, or in terms of recycling home appliances could/might have beneficial effects for sustainability. The topic, while relevant for the time (un)sustainability dedicated to the unpaid household work, irrespective of the type of household, according to the selected variables, does not relate sufficiently to the issue of sustainability, and should perhaps emphasize how this micro-level sustainability could contribute, or might be improved for ensuring macrolevel sustainability.  Hence, sustainability takes a secondary position for mandatory compliance while the results are not framed conclusively in the context of sustainability and of the green economy.

 The conclusions are rather vague, without a clear relationship to sustainability and how it might be achieved in the Slovak context. Moreover, even the authors conclude by the end of the paper that it might be a basis for analyzing goals such as quality of life in/for households, and environmental protection. The goal of the paper seems to be rather to offer a starting point for debates, that is more of ergonomic nature and directed to maximizing the substitution of unpaid work by local enterprises.

The study achieves its stipulated goal of clarifying the time (un)sustainability in Slovak households at microlevel but should delve deeper into the relevance for sustainability, especially in presenting comprehensively the implications of the model employed for sustainability, and better detail in the conclusions the relationship to sustainability, including relevant policies. Overall, the paper is relevant by presenting a new and interesting approach but needs to address more specifically the issue of sustainability. Finally, some minor language revisions would be advisable.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper is a good contribution to the literature.

It is well structured and the introduction provides a good background for the empirical analysis.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We would like to thank you for very favourable review. We have done several improvements in the text, to indicate more clearly interconnection of the research with the micro level and macro level sustainability.

We also corrected minor language mistakes and typos. 

 

Authors 

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

In consideration of the efforts made by the author in improving the quality of the manuscript by clarifying contents according to reviewers’ recommendations, we consider the manuscript with the title: (Un)Sustainability of The Time Devoted To Selected Housework –
Evidence From Slovakia is suitable prepared. We regard the revised version as a valuable contribution to knowledge about the state-of-the-art in this respect for Slovakia, and as a good reference for further papers dealing with comparable topics and themes.