Dynamic Female Labor Supply

Zvi Eckstein () and Osnat Lifshitz

No 4550, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: The increase in female employment and participation rates is one of the most dramatic economic changes to have taken place during the last century. However, while the employment rate of married women more than doubled during the last fifty years, that of unmarried women remained almost constant. In order to empirically analyze these trends we divide the paper into two parts: In the first, we empirically estimate a traditional female dynamic labor supply model using an extended version of Eckstein and Wolpin (1989) in order to compare the various explanations in the literature for the observed trends. The main finding is that the rise in education levels accounts for about one-third of the increase in female employment while about 40 percent remains unexplained by observed household characteristics. We show that this unexplained portion can be empirically attributed to changes in preferences or the costs of childrearing and household maintenance. In the second part, we formulate and estimate a new framework for the couple intra-family game that is then used to analyze the household dynamic labor supply. We find that female labor supply may have increased significantly due to a change in the form of the household game.

Keywords: accounting; female employment; dynamic discrete choice; household game (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 J2 J3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 63 pages
Date: 2009-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Published - published in: Econometrica, 2011, 79 (6), 1675–1726

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Related works:
Journal Article: Dynamic Female Labor Supply (2011)
Working Paper: Dynamic Female Labor Supply (2010)
Working Paper: Dynamic Female Labor Supply (2009)
Working Paper: Dynamic Female Labor Supply (2009)
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