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Job polarization refers to the disproportionate increase in employment in top and bottom-paying occupations, at the expense of middling-paying jobs that most Western economies have witnessed since 1990. At the same time, a large increase in female labour market partic-ipation took place in the same economies, raising the question of whether female employment may explain part of the observed polarization. This paper uses German data to investigate the role of high-skilled females in the development of a market for home production substi-tutes. To provide causal evidence on the demand for services, I exploit exogenous variation in top paying-occupations' labour market incentives, captured by the dispersion of hourly wages at the occupational level. I find that when top-employed females work more hours, low-skilled women are more likely to be employed.
