Changes in the Labor Supply Behavior of Married Women: 1980–2000

By Francine D. Blau, Lawrence M. Kahn. Journal of Labor Economics, 2007

886 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Using March Current Population Survey data, we investigate married women’s labor supply from 1980 to 2000. We find a large rightward shift in their labor supply function for annual hours in the 1980s, with little shift in the 1990s. These shifts account for most of the slowdown in the growth of labor supply during this period. A major development was the dramatic decrease in the responsiveness of married women’s labor supply to their own and husbands’ wages: their own wage elasticity fell by 50%–56%, while their cross wage elasticity fell by 38%–47% in absolute value.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Gender Studies, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/50b86c4e3676b9eb5f73886b2158ab718d11a3b5

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Citations in the corpus

Bounds on Elasticities with Optimization Frictions: A Synthesis of Micro and Macro Evidence on Labor Supply (2012, neutral): “Blau and Kahn (2007) U.S. Wage Variation 1989-2001, Married Women 0.45 0.004 1.00 0.44 0.45 0.43 0.46 Mean observed elasticity 0.24 Bounds on Extensive Margin Labor Supply Elasticities with = 1% Frictions Note: This table shows bounds on structural extensive margin elasticities using estimates from…”
The Labor Supply of Undocumented Immigrants (2017, result): “This finding is consistent with recent evidence showing a dramatic convergence in the magnitude of the labor supply elasticities for men and women (Blau and Kahn, 2007).”
Optimal Labor Income Taxation (2012, background): “, move toward individualized system Particularly important when cohabitation is close substitute for marriage (as in Scandinavian countries) (3) If labor supply of secondary earners more elastic than labor supply of primary earner⇒ Secondary earnings should be taxed less (Boskin-Sheshinski JpubE’83)”
What Explains the Variation in Estimates of Labour Supply Elasticities? (2006, background): “and Hoynes (2004) and Blau and Kahn (2005) .”
Culture as Learning: The Evolution of Female Labor Force Participation Over a Century (2013, neutral): “Taking the derivative of L(�L;�t) L(�H;�t) with respect to � (so as to change all s�j) and using ( 13 ),”