Female Labour Supply, Human Capital and Welfare Reform

Richard Blundell (), Monica Costa Dias, Costas Meghir and Jonathan Shaw

No 7375, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We consider the impact of tax credits and income support programs on female education choice, employment, hours and human capital accumulation over the life-cycle. We analyze both the short run incentive effects and the longer run implications of such programs. By allowing for risk aversion and savings, we quantify the insurance value of alternative programs. We find important incentive effects on education choice and labor supply, with single mothers having the most elastic labor supply. Returns to labor market experience are found to be substantial but only for full-time employment, and especially for women with more than basic formal education. For those with lower education the welfare programs are shown to have substantial insurance value. Based on the model, marginal increases to tax credits are preferred to equally costly increases in income support and to tax cuts, except by those in the highest education group.

Keywords: labour supply; human capital; welfare reform (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H31 J22 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 59 pages
Date: 2013-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-dge, nep-edu, nep-hrm, nep-ltv and nep-pbe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (34)

Published - published in: Econometrica, 2016, 84 (5), 1705-1753

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp7375.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Female Labor Supply, Human Capital, and Welfare Reform (2016)
Working Paper: Female Labor Supply, Human Capital and Welfare Reform (2016)
Working Paper: Female labour supply, human capital and welfare reform (2016)
Working Paper: Female Labor Supply, Human Capital and Welfare Reform (2015)
Working Paper: Female Labour Supply, Human Capital and Welfare Reform (2013)
Working Paper: Female Labor Supply, Human Capital and Welfare Reform (2013)
Working Paper: Female labour supply, human capital and welfare reform (2013)
Working Paper: Female labour supply, human capital and welfare reform (2013)
Working Paper: Female Labour Supply, Human Capital and Welfare Reform (2013)
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:dp7375

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 ().