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Title: Accounting for Changes in Labor Force Participation of Married Women: The Case of the U.S. since 1959
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2008
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Abstract: Using a model of family decision-making with home production and individual heterogeneity,we quantitatively investigate the role of changes in several aspects of the joint earningsdistribution of husbands and wives (gender earnings gap, gender-specific inequality and assortativenessof matching) and the decline in prices of home appliances in accounting for thedramatic rise in labor force participation of married women since 1959. The implicationsof the factors examined are tested against changes in participation for disaggregated groupsof couples and leisure trends of married individuals, documented from the U.S. populationcensus and time-use survey data. The key finding is that changes in the distribution of potentialearnings account for nearly 90% of the observed increase in labor force participationof married females and in a manner consistent with the change in participation for groupsof females differentiated according to the husbands earnings and changes in group-specificleisure trends. Closing of the gender earnings gap is the main aspect of the distribution thatunderlies this result. Also, increasing purchasing power associated with the closing of thegender earnings gap, generates a widespread use of home appliances, thus driving the homeproduction revolution, which is commonly regarded as a result of the fall in prices of homeappliances alone. The decline in prices of home appliances accounts for only 5% of the rise infemale LFP, while implying counterfactually strong increases in gender-specific leisure time.
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Authors: Leukhina, Oksana; Bar, Michael
Publisher: San Francisco State University
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Family and Marriage, Gender, Labor Force and Occupational Structure
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