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Title: Self-Employment, Workplace Flexibility and Maternal Labor Supply: A Life-Cycle Model

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2015

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Abstract: This paper quantifies the value of self-employment as a flexible work alternative for mothers with young children. On average, self-employed women have more control over their work schedule, hours and location than wage and salary employed women. I incorporate self-employment into a life-cycle model of married womens fertility and employment decisions and use data from the NLSY79 to estimate the value of self-employment flexibility for mothers. I find that mothers with preschool-aged children value the package of flexible amenities in self-employment at $7,400 annually, which represents around 20% of their average wage and salary earnings. A partial equilibrium counterfactual exercise suggests that self-employment flexibility encourages married women to continue working when they have young children, raising womens median lifetime earnings by 2.4%. Overall, my findings offer evidence that inflexible work causes mothers to leave the labor force in response to the high costs of managing work and family.

Url: http://sites.lsa.umich.edu/katherinelim/wp-content/uploads/sites/287/2015/10/JMP_Lim_10_30_15.pdf

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Authors: Lim, Katherine

Publisher: University of Michigan

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Fertility and Mortality, Labor Force and Occupational Structure

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