Family values and labor force participation: Ireland in international perspective

The large-scale entry of married women into the workforce has been a striking feature of the post-war period, particularly in the United States, Britain, and other Anglo-Celtic nations. Theory implies that this should happen in all developed nations. But there is a counter-example: Ireland. To discover whether this is truly an exception, we analyze data from large, representative samples of Ireland, the USA, Britain, and Australia (pooled n=8,240). We find that Irish are not especially traditional; they are especially devout, but the difference persists when this is controlled. Strikingly, the behavior of Irish immigrants is indistinguishable from other Anglo-Celts in their new societies. Thus it seems that Irish exceptionalism arises from an institutional setting uniquely hostile to women’s employment. She is currently coordinating a multi-national research project assessing the extent of ethnic discrimination in different societies. She and Jonathan Kelley are continuing their long-run international, comparative project on economic culture with special reference to inequality. He and M.D.R. Evans conduct their omnibus International Social Science Surveys, which include as their International Survey of Economic Attitudes, their Bioethics surveys, the Australian National Social Science Survey, and others. They are completing a book on time use and subjective well-being in later life. She researches intergenerational social mobility and occupational careers with special reference to gender, and also studies socio-political attitudes and their sources, particularly using International Social Survey Program data.