The Distribution of Family Earnings

James Smith

Labor and Demography from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This paper investigates the influence of wives' earnings on the distribution of family earnings. In the process some differences in the manner in which family earnings are distributed within racial groups are highlighted. Earnings of wives equalize income distributions in white families but increase dispersion among blacks. Because they have conflicting effects, covariances between spouses in their wage rates and labor supply are isolated. Male and female wage functions are adjusted for sample censoring to fill out the true population variances and covariances in wages across all families. Due to the larger positive correlation in wages of black spouses, black family earnings would be distributed more unequally even if all individuals worked the same amount. Our labor supply analysis indicates that white families attempt to stabilize family earnings with some family members increasing their labor supply in response to a decline in participation of other family members. This compensatory function of wives' earnings is much less prevalent in black families.

JEL-codes: J (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2004-08-16
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ltv
Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 30. Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 87, No. 5, 1979, pp. S163-S192
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/lab/papers/0408/0408010.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Distribution of Family Earnings (1979)
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:wpa:wuwpla:0408010

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Labor and Demography from University Library of Munich, Germany
Bibliographic data for series maintained by EconWPA ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).