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Title: Cultural Change as Learning: The Evolution of Female Labor Force Participation over a Century

Citation Type: Conference Paper

Publication Year: 2011

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Abstract: This paper investigates the role of changes in culture in generating the dramaticincrease in married women's labor force participation over the last century. It developsa dynamic model of culture in which individuals hold heterogeneous beliefs regardingthe relative long-run payo s for women who work in the market versus the home. Thesebeliefs evolve endogenously via an intergenerational learning process. Women are as-sumed to learn about the long-term payo s of working by observing (noisy) private andpublic signals. This process generically generates the S-shaped gure for female laborforce participation found in the data. I calibrate the model to several key statisticsand show that it does a good job in replicating the quantitative evolution of femaleLFP in the US over the last 120 years. I also examine the model's cross-sectional andintergenerational implications. The model highlights a new dynamic role for changesin wages via their e ect on intergenerational learning. The calibration shows that thisrole was quantitatively important in several decades.

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Authors: Fernandez, Racquel

Conference Name: European Economic Association

Publisher Location: Vienna, Austria

Data Collections: IPUMS USA, IPUMS CPS

Topics: Gender, Labor Force and Occupational Structure

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