The family investment model: A formalization and review of evidence from across immigrant groups

In what has become known as the Family Investment Model, several scholars have hypothesized that financing investment in host-country skills by immigrant husbands is a factor affecting the labor force decisions and human capital investment of immigrant married women. This paper reviews empirical evidence from one stream of research on the family investment model. I also formalize the family investment hypothesis and incorporate it into a traditional model of female labor force participation. The formalization provides a simple way to conceptualize the family investment hypothesis. Including it in a conventional model of female labor force participation emphasizes that the effect of a family investment strategy on the work behavior of immigrant women must be understood in the context of a woman's level of host country-specific skills, as well as all other factors generally included in models of female labor force participation.