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Title: Mothers, Wives and Workers: The Dynamics of White Fertility, Marriage and Womens Labor Supply in the United States 1870 -1930

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2006

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Abstract: The sweeping changes in women's role in the 20th century have their origin in the 1870-1930 period. This was a time when the patterns of women's labor supply and marriage changed profoundly. While fertility kept falling throughout the period, the nuptiality first declined, then, around 1900, picked up again. At the same time, American women were a growing presence on the labor market: first as singles, then, after 1900, increasingly as married women. I develop a model which jointly explains labor market and marriage and fertility behavior during this period. Technological change and the associated increase in single womens labor supply are modeled as the prime force for change: they strengthened womens bargaining position on the marriage market. Pre-marital bargaining between a man and a woman concerns not only the division of (future) family income but also the sources of this income. Its outcome depends on the threat-points of men and women which in turn depend on the wages that men and women earn while single. Men are assumed to derive a disutility from their wives work and would prefer to see their partners to stay at home after marriage. Women, however, draw no disutility from work and focus solely on their overall level of utility. In the model, it is this conflict that leads to a postponement of marriage at first, as the men and women hold out, and to an increase in married womens labor supply when the men give in. The theoretical findings are further investigated through calibration of the model.

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Authors: Cvrcek, Tomas

Publisher: Vanderbilt University

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Family and Marriage, Labor Force and Occupational Structure

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