Tax Structure and Female Labour Market Participation: Evidence from Ireland

Tim Callan, Arthur van Soest () and John R. Walsh ()
Additional contact information
John R. Walsh: ESRI, Dublin

No 3090, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: How great an effect does the structure of income taxes have on women’s labour market participation? This issue is investigated using a discrete choice static labour supply model for married couples in Ireland. The model incorporates fixed costs of working and simultaneously explains participation decisions and preferred hours of work. Details of the tax system are fully incorporated, and key elements of the welfare system are also taken into account. The model is estimated using data from the 1994 wave of the Living in Ireland Survey. The results are used to analyse the labour supply effects of a move to greater independence in the tax treatment of couples. The influence of tax structure on participation is reconsidered in the light of trends in women’s participation in the labour market and two key changes in the structure of taxation: a shift from a joint or aggregated basis of assessment to an “income-splitting” system in 1980 and a further substantial shift from income-splitting towards greater independence from 2000 onwards.

Keywords: discrete choice; micro-simulation; labour supply (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H31 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2007-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec, nep-lab and nep-pub
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Published - published in: Labour, 2009, 23(1), 1-35

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp3090.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Tax Structure and Female Labour Market Participation: Evidence from Ireland (2007)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3090

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().