IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/labour/v14y2000i1p35-52.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Employment Decisions of Married Women: Evidence and Explanations

Author

Listed:
  • Daniela Del Boca
  • Marilena Locatelli
  • Silvia Pasqua

Abstract

Aggregate evidence has revealed a significant increase in women’s labour market participation (especially among married women) and a decline in male participation, both in Italy and in all the other OECD countries. This paper empirically tests the relationship between the education and employment status of husbands and wives using the Bank of Italy Survey (1995). The results of our analysis show that employed women are likely to be married to employed men with a higher level of education and higher income. The estimates of the labour supply decisions of wives show that the effect of the unemployment status of husbands is mediated by other factors associated with the family’s view of wives working outside home. The response to a husband’s unemployment depends significantly on the employment decisions of parents (mothers and mothers‐in‐law), a proxy for the couple’s attitude towards women’s work.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniela Del Boca & Marilena Locatelli & Silvia Pasqua, 2000. "Employment Decisions of Married Women: Evidence and Explanations," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 14(1), pages 35-52, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:labour:v:14:y:2000:i:1:p:35-52
    DOI: 10.1111/1467-9914.00123
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9914.00123
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1467-9914.00123?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Juhn, Chinhui & Murphy, Kevin M, 1997. "Wage Inequality and Family Labor Supply," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(1), pages 72-97, January.
    2. Del Boca, Daniela & Lusardi, Annamaria, 2003. "Credit market constraints and labor market decisions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(6), pages 681-703, December.
    3. Lundberg, Shelly, 1985. "The Added Worker Effect," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(1), pages 11-37, January.
    4. repec:bla:econom:v:47:y:1980:i:185:p:51-72 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Jacobsen, Joyce P & Rayack, Wendy L, 1996. "Do Men Whose Wives Work Really Earn Less?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 268-273, May.
    6. Giannelli, Gianna & Micklewright, John, 1995. "Why Do Women Married to Unemployed Men Have Low Participation Rates?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 57(4), pages 471-486, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Younghwan Song, 2007. "The working spouse penalty/premium and married women’s labor supply," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 5(3), pages 279-304, September.
    2. Ayhan, Sinem H., 2015. "Evidence of Added Worker Effect from the 2008 Economic Crisis," IZA Discussion Papers 8937, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Ayhan, Sinem H., 2014. "How Do Married Women Respond When Their Husbands Lose Their Jobs? Evidence from Turkey During the Recent Crisis," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100387, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    4. Hryshko, Dmytro & Juhn, Chinhui & McCue, Kristin, 2017. "Trends in earnings inequality and earnings instability among U.S. couples: How important is assortative matching?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 168-182.
    5. Jonathan Gruber & Julie Berry Cullen, 1996. "Spousal Labor Supply as Insurance: Does Unemployment Insurance Crowd Outthe Added Worker Effect?," NBER Working Papers 5608, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. DUGUET Emmanuel & SIMONNET Veronique, 2004. "The participation of couples in the labor market: an econometric analysis," Labor and Demography 0411005, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Sinem H. Ayhan, 2018. "Married women’s added worker effect during the 2008 economic crisis—The case of Turkey," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 767-790, September.
    8. Raj Chetty & Adam Szeidl, 2007. "Consumption Commitments and Risk Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(2), pages 831-877.
    9. Elena Bardasi & Mark Taylor, 2008. "Marriage and Wages: A Test of the Specialization Hypothesis," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 75(299), pages 569-591, August.
    10. Melvin Stephens, 2002. "Worker Displacement and the Added Worker Effect," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(3), pages 504-537, July.
    11. Bram De Rock & Mariia Kovaleva & Tom Potoms, 2023. "A Spouse and a House are all we need? Housing Demand, Labor Supply and Divorce over the Lifecycle," Working Papers ECARES 2023-18, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    12. Huang, Fung-Mey & Luh, Yir-Hueih & Huang, Fung-Yea, 2012. "Unemployment information and wives’ labor supply responses to husbands’ job loss in Taiwan," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 1176-1194.
    13. Massimo Baldini & Costanza Torricelli & Maria Cesira Urzì Brancati, 2018. "Family ties: Labor supply responses to cope with a household employment shock," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 809-832, September.
    14. Jochen Mankart & Rigas Oikonomou, 2017. "Household Search and the Aggregate Labour Market," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(4), pages 1735-1788.
    15. Perugini, Cristiano, 2020. "Patterns and drivers of household income dynamics in Russia: The role of access to credit," BOFIT Discussion Papers 11/2020, Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies (BOFIT).
    16. Rania Gihleb & Osnat Lifshitz, 2022. "Dynamic Effects of Educational Assortative Mating on Labor Supply," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 46, pages 302-327, October.
    17. Jean-Luc Gaffard, 2014. "Crise de la théorie et crise de la politique économique. Des modèles d'équilibre général stochastique aux modèles de dynamique hors de l'équilibre," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 65(1), pages 71-96.
    18. Aedin Doris, 1999. "The Effect of the Means Testing of Venefits on Household Income and the Incentives to Work of the Wives of Unemployed Men," Economics Department Working Paper Series n870499, Department of Economics, National University of Ireland - Maynooth.
    19. Nabanita Datta Gupta & Nina Smith & Leslie S. Stratton, 2007. "Is Marriage Poisonous? Are Relationships Taxing? An Analysis of the Male Marital Wage Differential in Denmark," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 74(2), pages 412-433, October.
    20. Lee, Jungmin, 2004. "Observable and Unobservable Household Sharing Rules: Evidence from Young Couples' Pocket Money," IZA Discussion Papers 1250, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:labour:v:14:y:2000:i:1:p:35-52. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/csrotit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.