Preference or endowment? Intergenerational transmission of women’s work behavior and the underlying mechanisms

Zhongda Li () and Lu Liu ()
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Zhongda Li: Jinan University
Lu Liu: University of California, Los Angeles

Journal of Population Economics, 2019, vol. 32, issue 4, No 9, 1435 pages

Abstract: Abstract Existing studies have established a positive correlation between a married woman’s work behavior and her mother-in-law’s. Such linkage is attributable to the profound influence of maternal employment on son’s gender role preferences or household productivity. This paper systematically investigates the relative importance of the two potential mechanisms using the Chinese survey data. We show that a substantive part of the intergenerational correlation is left unexplained even if we control for the husband’s gender role attitudes. Instead, we find that the husband’s household productivity is more crucial in the wife’s work decision, suggesting the dominance of the endowment channel over the preference channel.

Keywords: Intergenerational transmission; Preference channel; Endowment channel; Heterogeneous effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 J21 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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DOI: 10.1007/s00148-018-0721-0

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