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Title: Dads and Daughters: The Changing Impact of Fathers on Women's Occupational Choices

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2010

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Abstract: We examine whether womens rising labor force participation led to increased intergenerationaltransmission of occupation from fathers to daughters. In order to motivateour empirical strategy, we develop a model of investment of fathers in daughters, wherefathers invest in human capital that is specific to their occupations. Our model generatesan empirical test where we compare the trends in the probabilities that a woman worksin her fathers versus her father-in-laws occupation. Because of assortative mating, thefather-in-laws occupation serves as a kind of counterfactual for the set of occupations thateach particular woman might have chosen absent transmission from her father. Using datafrom birth cohorts of women born between 1909 and 1977, our results indicate that theestimated difference in these trends accounts for at least 13 to 20 percent of the totalincrease in the probability that a woman enters her fathers occupation. Thus, over thebirth cohorts studied, daughters are increasingly likely to enter their fathers occupation,above and beyond what would have been expected from the secular rise in women enteringtraditionally male-dominated occupations.

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Authors: Morrill, Melinda S.; Hellerstein, Judith K.

Publisher: North Carolina State University

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Family and Marriage, Gender, Labor Force and Occupational Structure

Countries: United States