Immigration, Female Labour Supply and Local Cultural Norms

Jonas Jessen, Sophia Schmitz and Felix Weinhardt ()
Additional contact information
Sophia Schmitz: Federal Institute for Population Research
Felix Weinhardt: European University Viadrina, Frankfurt / Oder

No 16428, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We study the local evolution of female labour supply and cultural norms in West Germany in reaction to the sudden presence of East Germans who migrated to the West after reunication. These migrants grew up with high rates of maternal employment, whereas West German families mostly followed the traditional breadwinner-housewife model. We find that West German women increase their labour supply and that this holds within households. We provide additional evidence on stated gender norms, West-East friendships, intermarriage, and child care infrastructure. The dynamic evolution of the effects on labour supply is best explained by local cultural learning.

Keywords: immigration; cultural norms; local learning; gender (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D1 J16 J21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 54 pages
Date: 2023-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-his, nep-lab, nep-soc and nep-ure
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published - published in: Economic Journal , 2024, 134 (659), 1146–1172

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp16428.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Immigration, Female Labour Supply and Local Cultural Norms (2024)
Working Paper: Immigration, Female Labour Supply and Local Cultural Norms (2022)
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:dp16428

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 ().