The Great Depression and the rise of female employment: A new hypothesis

Andriana Bellou () and Emanuela Cardia

No 22, CLEF Working Paper Series from Canadian Labour Economics Forum (CLEF), University of Waterloo

Abstract: The life-cycle labor supply of women born at the turn of the 20th century diverged sharply from previous cohorts. Although they had similar participation rates in early adulthood, younger cohorts were significantly more likely to work at middle age. This paper documents a link between these changing patterns of female labor supply and the Great Depression. We find that the onset of the Great Depression led to a large increase in young women's labor force participation in 1930 via an added-worker effect. Cohorts induced into the workforce in the early 1930s had significantly higher employment rates through the 1940s and 1950s, suggesting a permanent impact of the Great Depression on women's lifecycle labor supply.

Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-ltv
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Related works:
Journal Article: The Great Depression and the rise of female employment: A new hypothesis (2021)
Working Paper: Great Depression and the Rise of Female Employment: A New Hypothesis (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:clefwp:22

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