Jim Eaton wrote:  
"Doesn't the work of Becker and others suggest that social phenomena not  
evidently grounded in choice are in fact so grounded and therefore not  
out of bounds for economists to study?"  
   
  
Becker's work is roundly criticized for circularity of reasoning. His  
later version of new household economics is improved, but the basic  
problem is that choice theory has to assume that the 'choices' people  
make are somehow rational. [Sen's rational fools?] So the sexual  
division of labor is optimal in a sense, because whatever choices women  
make, i.e. not taking on long hours of work and thus not climbing the  
career ladders like men, is what is most rational for them, because  
women's incomes on the average are smaller and household income is thus  
maximized. This doesn't take the explanation very far if it ignores that  
either women are socialized to do so, the workplaces are not structured  
to recognize society's needs for reproduction of species and thus are  
not concerned about women workers' particular responsibilities, or  
without really equal participation in the domestic tasks from their  
partners, they have no 'choice' but to end up with smaller earnings.  
There are other implicit assumptions of such analyses as well.  
  
Just ask Larry Summers of Harvard as to why 80-hour work weeks of his  
male faculty members aren't duplicated by many of their female  
colleagues :-). My apologies for the long response.  
  
Sumitra Shah