Insights from kernel conditional-probability estimates into female labour force participation decision in the UK

Obbey Elamin (), Len Gill () and Martyn Andrews ()
Additional contact information
Obbey Elamin: King Faisal University
Len Gill: The University of Manchester
Martyn Andrews: The University of Manchester

Empirical Economics, 2020, vol. 58, issue 6, No 16, 3006 pages

Abstract: Abstract The female labour force participation decision in the UK is a well-researched topic in empirical economics and econometrics. In this paper, using data from the UK Labour Force Survey in 2007, we contribute to the rich body of the literature by estimating a model using the kernel mixed-data-type conditional-probability (KMDTCP) estimator. We extend the analysis by comparing the predicted probabilities of the KMDTCP estimator with the estimates of a multinomial logit (MNL) model. Additionally, kernel smoothing specification tests are applied in order to compare different functional forms for the independent variables in the MNL model against the KMDTCP estimates. Our results demonstrate that the difference between the predictions from the KMDTCP estimator and the MNL is reduced when the functional form of continuous independent variables in the MNL model is relaxed to a semi-parametric form using dummy variables and interaction terms. The properties that are captured by the KMDTCP estimator show clearly that the propensity to work decreases with the increase in the number of dependent children. Furthermore, our analyses show that females older than 40 years of age have a high propensity to work irrespective of the number of dependent children.

Keywords: Labour force; Multinomial; Logit; Kernel; Conditional-density; Smoothing tests (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C14 C21 C25 J20 J21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00181-019-01649-w Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:empeco:v:58:y:2020:i:6:d:10.1007_s00181-019-01649-w

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... rics/journal/181/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s00181-019-01649-w

Access Statistics for this article

Empirical Economics is currently edited by Robert M. Kunst, Arthur H.O. van Soest, Bertrand Candelon, Subal C. Kumbhakar and Joakim Westerlund

More articles in Empirical Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().