Scheidung in Ost- und Westdeutschland

This paper compares marital stability of East and West German women before re-unification in 1990. It is analyzed to what extent women in both countries differed concerning the risk to experience a first divorce and what factors caused these differences. The main focus is on the impact of women’s labor force participation on marital stability. While the GDR, in terms of women’s participatio in the labor market, was based on egalitarian role expectations, the social and institutional constraints of the FRG supported the male-breadwinner model. The oppositeness of these role models makes it possible to investigate whether the interrelation between women’s labor force participation and marital stability differs between traditional and egalitarian societies. The empirical analyses, based on the German Fertility and Family Survey (1992), show a significantly higher divorce risk for East German women that is primarily caused by the smaller number of religious people, a higher share of women that experienced a parental divorce and the higher number of employed women in the GDR. In both countries women’ labor force participation was connected with a higher divorce risk, but the effect was stronger in West than in East Germany. Thus, this study yields evidence for a weaker negative relationship between women’s labor force participation and marital stability in societies that are dominated by egalitarian in comparison to traditional role expectations.     

The Labor Market Participation of Sandwich Generation Italian Women

We empirically analyzed the labor market participation of Italian women, with special emphasis on the role of intergenerational family links. Older relatives, on the one hand, discourage the work participation of women by requiring care; on the other hand they may provide household services favoring labor supply. We studied this dual impact estimating a trivariate probit model where the three choices to be in the labor force, to use informal help from older relatives and to care for them are jointly determined. Our estimates show that care duties towards members of the previous generation hinder the labor market participation of Italian women, and that informal help received from older relatives strongly increases their probability of being engaged in paid work.

The Motherhood Penalty at Midlife: Long‐Term Effects of Children on Women's Careers

The authors build on prior research on the motherhood wage penalty to examine whether the career penalties faced by mothers change over the life course. They broaden the focus beyond wages to also consider labor force participation and occupational status and use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women to model the changing impact of motherhood as women age from their 20s to their 50s (n = 4,730). They found that motherhood is “costly” to women's careers, but the effects on all 3 labor force outcomes attenuate at older ages. Children reduce women's labor force participation, but this effect is strongest when women are younger and is eliminated by the 40s and 50s. Mothers also seem able to regain ground in terms of occupational status. The wage penalty for having children varies by parity, persisting across the life course only for women who have 3 or more children.     

Understanding the Juggling Act: Gendered Preferences and Social Structural Constraints

In this paper we use longitudinal data to test the strength of individual preferences and structural variables as explanations for married women's labor force participation. Data drawn from a subset of the Career Development Study are used to compare gendered preferences measured toward the end of adolescence vs. work and family structural variables as predictors of the actual number of hours married women work for pay. Family structures that push women out of the labor force and pull them into family work prove to be the strongest predictor of married women's employment hours, with work structures (e.g., aspects of good jobs) and the subjective definition of paid work as a career also being substantively important for explaining hours in the labor force. Our findings also indicate that attitudes formed before and during early adolescence do have a weak but statistically significant effect on married women's labor force participation, at least for baby boom women.     

De facto immigration enforcement,ICE raid awareness,and worker engagement

We explore whether fear of apprehension affects immigrants' labor market engagement by examining how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) removals due to immigration violations and increased awareness of immigration raids impact their labor market outcomes. We find that ICE deportations are associated with reductions in the labor force participation and employment of likely undocumented immigrants when compared to similarly skilled foreign-born US citizens. Effects are particularly strong among women, especially those with children, as well as in industries likely targeted by ICE raids. Controlling for perceived threats and de jure immigration policies has little impact on these results.     

Female Labor Force Participation in Urban and Rural China1

Abstract The objective of this study is to examine female labor force participation and its determinants in rural and urban China. The sociological literature has demonstrated that participation tends to increase in urban and industrialized places where women have higher levels of education and fewer children, where more workers are engaged in service pursuits, and where family structure is less traditional. With the use of data on counties and cities (N = 2,377) from the I-percent sample of the 1982 census of the People's Republic of China, it was found that female labor force participation is likely to rise in areas with increased agricultural employment, educational levels, proportion of female-headed households, and higher male-to-female sex ratios. Both the size of the service sector and the fertility rate had negligible effects on female labor force participation. Although, on average, rural places have slightly higher levels of female labor force participation, when other variables are controlled, urban places have a higher rate of female participation. In addition, the findings suggest that market factors (i.e., education) are more likely to determine the rate of female labor force participation in urban areas; whereas demographic and social factors (i.e., sex ratio and household structure) play a more important role in explaining the female labor force participation in rural counties.     

Before Crisis: Gender and Economic Outcomes of the Two Largest Immigrant Communities in Spain1

In this study, we compare labor force outcomes of the two largest immigrant communities in Spain (Moroccans and Romanians) before the economic crisis hit. We are interested in understanding if and how gender influences the labor force outcomes (wage per hour, labor force participation, and unemployment rate) of these two immigrant groups. Our analyses show that, overall, gender is an important variable on Spanish labor market, but it affects differently the two groups. There is a male job market and a female job market for both Romanian and Moroccan immigrants, with men earning significantly higher wages than women. However, while for Moroccans, working women differ significantly from men in terms of demographic characteristics, Romanian women and men have similar demographic characteristics and comparable levels of labor force participation, but differ in terms of wage levels.     

Married female labor force participation and suicide in Canada, 1971 and 1981

The cultural context affects the relationship between women's involvement in the labor force and the odds of suicide for both men and women. In this study, we examine this relationship in Canada in 1971 and then again in 1981, when cultural conditions were significantly different. Two hypotheses are evaluated: (1) in 1971 the effects of married female labor force participation increase suicide risk for both men and women, due to the relative antipathy of society toward women's participation in the labor force; and (2) in 1981 the effects of married female labor force participation decrease the risk of suicide for both sexes, for there are net positive gains (psychic and material) in a context of widespread acceptance of women's involvement in the paid economy. The empirical analysis provides support for these two hypotheses.     

Decomposing culture: an analysis of gender,language, and labor supply in the household

Despite broad progress in closing many dimensions of the gender gap around the globe, recent research has shown that traditional gender roles can still exert a large influence on female labor force participation, even in developed economies. This paper empirically analyzes the role of culture in determining the labor market engagement of women within the context of collective models of household decision making. In particular, we use the epidemiological approach to study the relationship between gender in language and labor market participation among married female immigrants to the U.S. We show that the presence of gender in language can act as a marker for culturally acquired gender roles and that these roles are important determinants of household labor allocations. Female immigrants who speak a language with sex-based grammatical rules exhibit lower labor force participation, hours worked, and weeks worked. Our strategy of isolating one component of culture reveals that roughly two thirds of this relationship can be explained by correlated cultural factors, including the role of bargaining power in the household, and the impact of ethnic enclaves and that at most one third is potentially explained by language having a causal impact.     

Personality and labor force participation across the life course: A longitudinal study of women's careers

The influences on and consequences of women's labor force experience are examined using data from members of the Berkeley longitudinal studies born between 1920 and 1929. In adolescence, these women were overwhelmingly oriented toward marriage and family rather than career, yet more than two-thirds eventually spent substantial time in the paid labor force. Consistent labor force participation was lower for women who had been attractive, outgoing, feminine, self-confident, and status seeking in their high school years. High labor force participation, however, was associated with increases in self-confidence, status seeking, assertiveness, and intellectual investment between adolescence and later adulthood. The demographic correlates of labor force participation changed over the life course: as family responsibilities diminished in the later middle years, both family composition and husband's occupational status decreased in importance, while the importance of a woman's own education level and her husband's expected retirement income increased.     

A Research Note on Family and Income Distribution: The Equalizing Impact of Married Women's Earnings in Metropolitan Brazil*

Using the 1985 Brazilian Annual Household Survey (PNAD), this study analyzes the extent to which the labor force participation of married women influenced familyincome inequality. The marginal impact on family earnings is decomposed into two components, one generated uniquely by differences in earnings inequality between spouses and another produced by imperfect assortive mating on spouses' earnings. Results show that the correlation among spouses' earnings is significantly less than one (0.4), and that the level of earnings inequality is more than 50 percent higher among wives than husbands. Because these forces are offsetting, wives' labor income has a negligible impact on family-income inequality in Brazil. The results demonstrate the importance of isolating the influence of imperfect assortive mating from that due to inequality in earnings between men and women.     

Childhood Predictors of Labor Force Participation in Adult Life

This study used longitudinal data from the National Child Development Study in the United Kingdom to investigate childhood predictors of labor force participation outcome (unemployed versus employed or self-employed) at age 33. In women, only general ability at age 11 was related to labor force participation at age 33, whereas in men labor force participation was negatively related to sibship size and domestic tension in childhood and psychological distress in adult life, and was positively related to presence of a partner in adult life, academic motivation in adolescence and educational attainment.     

Abortion and female labor force participation: Evidence prior to <Emphasis Type="Italic">Roe v. Wade</Emphasis>

From 1969 through 1972, and therefore prior to Roe v. Wade, several states legalized abortion. I examine whether the liberalization of state abortion laws affects female labor force participation using data from the March Current Population Survey (CPS) and estimate several probit participation equations. Results indicate that abortion, by reducing unwanted pregnancies and hence fertility rates, has increased the labor force participation rates of females, especially of single black women.     

Family life cycle and labour force behaviour of married women

A sociologist analyzed 1984 data on 18-49 year old Canadian women married to their 1st husband to examine the effect of certain variables on the probability that they work at 3 different stages of the family life cycle. The older the woman the less likely she would be working at each state. Age was most significant at stage 1 (married with no children) (p.05) and less significant at stage 3 (married with 1 or more children and expected no more) (p.1). Neither age nor marriage age determined wife's labor force participation at stage 2 (married with 1 or more children and expected more). Marriage age was positively related to labor force participation at stage 1 (p.1). At all stages, the more education a woman had the more likely she worked. This effect was significant at stage 3 (p.1). Place of birth had a significant negative effect on employment at stage 3 (p.05). Canadian-born women with children had a tendency not to work or not seek work (stages 2 and 3), but those with no children either worked or were seeking work. The age of the youngest child had no significant effect on labor force participation. The more children a woman in stage 3 had the more likely she did not work (p.1), but those in stage 2 were more likely to work even though the number of children did not strongly influence labor force participation. Husband's income had a small effect on labor force participation of wives at all stages, but it was significant at stages 1 and 3 (p.1). Husbands were more likely to have a favorable attitude toward employment of wives at stages 1 and 3, but it was only significant at stage 3 (p.05). Women at stage 2 preferred to combine work, often part time, and motherhood. This study suggests that labor force participation of mothers will most likely continue to grow.     

GENDER-COHORT SUCCESSION AND RETIREMENT AMONG OLDER MEN AND WOMEN, 1951 TO 1984

Long-term trends in occupational change and retirement policy have influenced the relative labor force participation and retirement patterns of subgroups of the older population. Structural changes in the economy have had a large impact on older men and women, pushing the former out of the labor force while pulling the latter in. Meanwhile, the expansion of pension programs for the aged has generally increased the early retirement of men under age 65. Time-series analyses of these trends between 1951 and 1984 point to the specific influences of these factors on gender-cohorts.     

Source country culture and labor market assimilation of immigrant women in Sweden: evidence from longitudinal data

This paper analyzes the role of source country culture on gender roles for labor market assimilation of immigrant women in Sweden. Sweden ranks as one of the world’s most gender-equal countries and at the same time a recipient of many immigrants from countries with more traditional views on gender roles and gender equality. I find that the labor force participation of immigrant women in Sweden is related to their source country culture, in the sense that women from countries where women’s labor market participation is low (high) also have low (high) participation in the Swedish labor market. However, all immigrant women assimilate towards, but do not reach parity with, the participation rate of native women, and the difference between women from high- and low-participation countries diminishes with length of residence in Sweden. This indicates that source country culture on gender roles does not have a persistent effect on immigrant women’s labor market participation in Sweden. Furthermore, the results highlight the importance of taking into account unobservable time-constant individual and source country factors when estimating the relationship between source country culture and immigrants’ labor market outcomes. Neglecting to control for these factors could lead researchers to misrepresent the rate of assimilation and overstate the effect of source country culture.     

WHY ARE U.S. WOMEN DECREASING THEIR LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION IF THEIR WAGES ARE RISING?

Given the traditional interpretation of women's labor force participation rate (LFPR) trends as movements along a positively sloped labor supply curve, it is surprising that the recent downward trend in U.S. women's LFPR has occurred over a period when women's real wages were commonly believed to be rising. I find that almost two‐thirds of the decline since 2000 is attributable to aging of the adult female population. The remainder, due to declining labor force participation for women under 55, becomes less puzzling in light of my evidence that the wage/education locus faced by women actually may have worsened since 2000. (JEL J21, J31, J82)     

The participation of women in the labour force of Latin America: fertility and other factors

The level of labor force participation among Latin American women, when compared with participation rates for other countries, is the lowest in the world. Only 20% or less of women 10 years of age and older are economically active. This level did not change much between 1950 and 1970. Few women work in agriculture. The following factors are considered for their effect on labor force participation of urban women: marital status, education, income, and the structure and stage of development of the society. Married women have a low participation rate. More highly educated women are more likely to work, but there must be demand for their work services. As the economy of various countries has progressed, female participation in domestic services has decreased, in industry has remained constant between 1960 and 1970, and in social services has expanded. It is concluded that work participation for married women will only increase with the following changes: 1) improved educational opportunities for women; 2) structural change and modernization in the economy; and 3) reduced family fertility. Changes in the first 2 factors are more important than reduced fertility. Since 1960, only Chile and Costa Rica have had a 25% decline in fertility rates.     

The labor supply of military wives in the US

Despite a slight increase in the labor force participation rate of women age 18–55 in the U.S. between 1990 and 2010, the labor force participation rate of military wives in this age cohort fell from 63 to 57?%. The goal of this paper is twofold: to document and analyze the labor force participation of military wives between 1990 and 2010, using the U.S. Census and American Community Survey data, and to compare the relationship between migration and labor force participation for military and non-military wives. We find that the primary suspects to explain the widening gap are the repeated migration for military wives, and the deepening of the recession.     

ENTITLEMENT EFFECTS, UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE AND EMPLOYMENT DECISIONS

Many studies have identified the work disincentive effects of unemployment insurance. This paper points out the entitlement effect of this and other social insurance programs on employment, as the risks of labor-market participation are reduced by the existence of unemployment benefits. This employment-increasing effect can offset the disincentive effect, with the net impact on employment becoming an empirical issue. Using data on a sample of married women for 1971, we find that on net there is a slight negative effect on employment of higher unemployment insurance benefits. The entitlement effect on employment is, though, generally positive and significant, suggesting that the provisions of social insurance induce increased labor-force participation among women who otherwise would remain out of the labor force.