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The Missing Men: World War I and Female Labor Participation

Author

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  • Gay, Victor
  • Boehnke, Jörn

Abstract

We explore the effect of military fatalities from World War I on female labor participation in post-war France. We build a unique dataset containing individual level information for all 1.3 million fallen soldiers, and find that the tightness of the marriage market along with negative income shocks generated by the scarcity of men induced many young single women and older widows to enter the labor force permanently after the war, especially in the industrial sector. These findings are robust to alternative empirical strategies, including an instrumental variables strategy based on idiosyncrasies generated by the recruitment process of the army.

Suggested Citation

  • Gay, Victor & Boehnke, Jörn, 2017. "The Missing Men: World War I and Female Labor Participation," MPRA Paper 77560, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:77560
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    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/98188/9/MPRA_paper_98188.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Victor Gay, 2017. "The Legacy of the Missing Men: The Long-Run Impact of World War I on Female Labor Force Participation," 2017 Papers pga905, Job Market Papers.
    2. Abel Brodeur & Lamis Kattan, 2022. "World War II, the Baby Boom, and Employment: County-Level Evidence," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(2), pages 437-471.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    female labor; labor supply; sex ratio; marriage market;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • N34 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Europe: 1913-

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