Flow Origins of Labor Force Participation Fluctuations

Michael Elsby, Bart Hobijn, Fatih Karahan, Gizem Kosar and Aysegul Sahin

AEA Papers and Proceedings, 2019, vol. 109, 461-64

Abstract: We investigate the origins of cyclical and trend movements in the labor force participation rate (LFPR) using a three-state flow decomposition. The procyclicality of LFPR can be traced to cyclical flows between employment and unemployment. By contrast, labor force entry and exit explain virtually all of the trend movements. Among men, rising labor force exit rates account for two-thirds of the trend decline in male LFPR since the 1990s. For women, trend increases in female LFPR during the 1990s were dominated by declining exit rates, while the trend decline since the Great Recession can be traced to declining entry rates.

JEL-codes: E24 E32 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
Note: DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20191054
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pandp.20191054 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pandp.20191054.data (application/zip)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pandp.20191054.appx (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pandp.20191054.ds (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
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:aea:apandp:v:109:y:2019:p:461-64

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/subscribe.html

Access Statistics for this article

AEA Papers and Proceedings is currently edited by William Johnson and Kelly Markel

More articles in AEA Papers and Proceedings from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().