IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mcm/qseprr/404.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Joint Taxation and the Labour Supply of Married Women: Evidence from the Canadian Tax Reform of 1988

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas F. Crossley
  • Sung-Hee Jeon

Abstract

The Canadian federal tax reform of 1988 replaced a spousal tax exemption with a non-refundable tax credit. This reduced the "jointness" of the tax system: after the reform, secondary earners' effective "first dollar" marginal tax rates no longer depended on the marginal tax rates of their spouses. In practice, the effective "first dollar" marginal tax rates faced by women with high income husbands were particularly reduced. Using difference-in-difference estimators, we find a significant increase in labour force participation among women married to higher income husbands.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas F. Crossley & Sung-Hee Jeon, 2006. "Joint Taxation and the Labour Supply of Married Women: Evidence from the Canadian Tax Reform of 1988," Quantitative Studies in Economics and Population Research Reports 404, McMaster University.
    • Handle: RePEc:mcm:qseprr:404
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/qsep/p/qsep404.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard Blundell & Alan Duncan & Costas Meghir, 1998. "Estimating Labor Supply Responses Using Tax Reforms," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(4), pages 827-862, July.
    2. LaLumia, Sara, 2008. "The effects of joint taxation of married couples on labor supply and non-wage income," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(7), pages 1698-1719, July.
    3. Blundell, Richard & Macurdy, Thomas, 1999. "Labor supply: A review of alternative approaches," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 27, pages 1559-1695, Elsevier.
    4. Gerald Auten & Robert Carroll, 1999. "The Effect Of Income Taxes On Household Income," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(4), pages 681-693, November.
    5. Richard P. Chaykowski & Lisa M. Powell, 1999. "Women and the Labour Market: Recent Trends and Policy Issues," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 25(s1), pages 2-25, November.
    6. Meyer, Bruce D, 1995. "Natural and Quasi-experiments in Economics," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 13(2), pages 151-161, April.
    7. Piggott, John & Whalley, John, 1996. "The Tax Unit and Household Production," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(2), pages 398-418, April.
    8. Patricia F. Apps & Ray Rees, 1999. "Individual versus Joint Taxation in Models with Household Production," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(2), pages 393-403, April.
    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. Mizuki Komura, 2013. "Tax reform and endogenous gender bargaining power," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 11(2), pages 175-192, June.
    2. Sung-Hee Jeon, 2004. "The impacts of the 1988 tax reform on married women's labour supply in Canada," Department of Economics Working Papers 2004-19, McMaster University.
    3. Alberto Alesina & Andrea Ichino & Loukas Karabarbounis, 2011. "Gender-Based Taxation and the Division of Family Chores," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 1-40, May.
    4. François Bourguignon & Amedeo Spadaro, 2012. "Tax–benefit revealed social preferences," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 10(1), pages 75-108, March.
    5. LaLumia, Sara, 2008. "The effects of joint taxation of married couples on labor supply and non-wage income," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(7), pages 1698-1719, July.
    6. Hans Schytte Sigaard, 2022. "Labor Supply Responsiveness to Tax Reforms," Economics Working Papers 2022-04, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    7. Håkan Selin, 2014. "The rise in female employment and the role of tax incentives. An empirical analysis of the Swedish individual tax reform of 1971," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 21(5), pages 894-922, October.
    8. Alpert, Abby & Powell, David, 2014. "Estimating Intensive and Extensive Tax Responsiveness: Do Older Workers Respond to Income Taxes?," Working Papers 987-1, RAND Corporation.
    9. Stevenson, Adam, 2012. "The Labor Supply and Tax Revenue Consequences of Federal Same-Sex Marriage Legalization," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 65(4), pages 783-806, December.
    10. Abby Alpert & David Powell, 2020. "Estimating Intensive And Extensive Tax Responsiveness," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 58(4), pages 1855-1873, October.
    11. Raj Chetty, 2006. "A Bound on Risk Aversion Using Labor Supply Elasticities," NBER Working Papers 12067, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Sillamaa, Mary-Anne & Veall, Michael R., 2001. "The effect of marginal tax rates on taxable income: a panel study of the 1988 tax flattening in Canada," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 341-356, June.
    13. Clément Carbonnier, 2014. "The influence of taxes on employment of married women, evidence from the French joint income tax system," Working Papers hal-03460526, HAL.
    14. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/7lfmtcll678th9ldbi6o2t0onk is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Gelber, Alexander, 2010. "Taxation and the Earnings of Husbands and Wives," MPRA Paper 20345, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Derek Messacar, 2022. "Labor Supply Responses to Income Taxation among Older Couples: Evidence from a Canadian Reform," Cahiers de recherche / Working Papers 10, Institut sur la retraite et l'épargne / Retirement and Savings Institute.
    17. Panayiota Lyssiotou & Elena Savva, 2021. "Labor supply responses to income tax free and bracket expansions," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 49(7), pages 1225-1239, November.
    18. Kalíšková, Klára, 2014. "Labor supply consequences of family taxation: Evidence from the Czech Republic," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 234-244.
    19. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/7lfmtcll678th9ldbi6o2t0onk is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Klara Kaliskova, 2013. "Family Taxation and the Female Labor Supply: Evidence from the Czech Republic," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp496, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    21. Ganghua Mei & Lei Yue, 2022. "Labor supply and time use: evidence from cohabiting women in the United States," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(44), pages 5133-5158, September.
    22. Mark B. Stewart, 2004. "The Impact of the Introduction of the U.K. Minimum Wage on the Employment Probabilities of Low-Wage Workers," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(1), pages 67-97, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Labour supply; Canadian tax reform; Married women; Difference-in-difference;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:mcm:qseprr:404. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/demcmca.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.