What determines women's labor supply? The role of home productivity and social norms

Farzana Afridi, Monisankar Bishnu and Kanika Mahajan
Additional contact information
Monisankar Bishnu: Indian Statistical Institute

JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, 2024, vol. 90, issue 1, 55-87

Abstract: We highlight the role of home productivity and social norms in explaining the gender gap in labor force participation (LFP), and the non-monotonic relationship of women's LFP with their education in India. We construct a model of couples’ time allocation decisions allowing for both market and home productivity to improve with own education. Incorporating individual preference to produce a minimum level of the home good due to social norms, we show that our theoretical model can closely replicate the U-shaped relationship between women's education and their labor supply. Our analysis suggests that home productivity, along with social benchmarks on couples’ time allocation to home good, can be critical determinants of women's labor supply in developing countries.

Keywords: Education; Home production; India; Women’s labor supply; Social norms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 J16 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-03-01
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1017/dem.2022.22 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: What determines women's labor supply? The role of home productivity and social norms (2024)
Working Paper: What Determines Women's Labor Supply? The Role of Home Productivity and Social Norms (2019)
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:ctl:louvde:v:90:y:2024:i:1:p:55-87

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics from Cambridge University Press Place Montesquieu 3, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium). Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sebastien SCHILLINGS ().