A Competitive Model of Women's Labor Force Participation in the United States: 1940-1978 (original) (raw)
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Social Science Research, 1980
The hypothesis that the structure of the forces that affect male and female labor force participation rates are distinct has been corroborated in numerous studies using microdata. This paper examines the validity of this structural distinctiveness hypothesis in the context of aggregate, time series data on male and female labor force participation in the post-World War II United States. Standard economic and sociological theories are used to specify sex-specific participation functions that contain indexes of the sex-specific general opportunity for employment, the sex-specific rates of participation in the armed forces and in postsecondary schooling institutions, the average real wage rate, the average number of hours worked, and the fertility rate. It is found that the female rate is more responsive than the male rate to the general employment opportunities and average hours indexes, but less responsive to the wage rate. Also, the female rate responds positively to the armed forces participation and college enrollment rates, whereas the male rate is negatively related to these indexes. However, no evidence is found for another component of the structural distinctiveness hypothesis, namely, that the fertility rate bears a consistent negative relationship to the female participation rate. While this relationship may have held during the early postwar years, it seems to have been substantially attentuated since the early l%Os.
Recent Evidence on Factors Influencing the Female Labor Force Participation Rate
Journal of Labor Research - J LABOR RES, 2008
This study seeks, using state-level data, to identify key factors that help to explain recent trends of labor force participation among women. Adult females are treated as attempting to maximize utility subject to a variety of budgetary and non-budgetary constraints. Among the findings obtained is a positive impact from the level of public assistance, i.e., the greater the extent of public assistance to adult females in the forms of Supplemental Security Income, Food Stamps, and so forth, the higher the female labor force participation rate (FLFPR). Other factors contributing to observed FLFPRs include age, the presence of young children, family income, educational attainment and disability status. In addition, we also find evidence that an increase in the proportion of the population that is non-native to the U.S. has a negative effect on the FLFPR.
Cohort-level sex ratio effects on women’s labor force participation
Review of Economics of the Household, 2007
It follows from a number of theoretical models of marriage that the scarcer women are relative to men, i.e. the higher the sex ratio, the less married women are likely to participate in the labor force. Such sex ratio effects may be stronger among less educated women. These predictions are tested using individual data from Current Population Surveys for four regions of the U.S. (Northeast, Midwest, South and West), and for the U.S. as a whole, covering the period 1965 to 2005 at five-year intervals. Within-region sex ratio variation results from variation in cohort size (due principally to large fluctuations in number of births) and limited fluctuations in the difference between male and female age at marriage. As hypothesized, we find that sex ratios are inversely related to women's labor force participation, reflecting that ceteris paribus women born in years of peak baby-boom are more likely to be in the labor force than women born in years of peak baby-bust. Additionally, weaker sex ratio effects are found among educated women in two of the four regions of the United States.
EFFECT OF PUBLIC EDUCATIONAL EXPENDITURES ON FEMALE LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION
This paper researches how public educational expenditure affects female labor force participation. The research is done on econometric model considering all the countries in last 25 years. After getting results on general level, the paper focuses on regional level of the issue. Two regions, Middle East, and Europe are focused in this research and were come out with useful findings
The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, 1999
Trends in U.S. female and male labor force participation are outlined, particularly for the post-World War II period. Potential causes of these trends are then discussed, both those that operate on the demand side and those that operate on the supply side of the labor market, along with some discussion of alternative approaches to modeling these employment changes. Effects of these trends and future direction of changes are also considered.