Mark R. Killingsworth

Chapter 2 Female labor supply: A survey

Publisher Summary This chapter presents a survey on female labor supply. The chapter surveys theoretical and empirical work on the labor supply of women, with special reference to women in Western economies, primarily the United States, in modern times. The behavior of female labor supply has important implications for many other phenomena, including marriage, fertility, divorce, the distribution of family earnings and male-female wage differentials. The labor supply of women is also of interest, because of the technical questions it poses. For example, because many women do not work, corner solutions are at least potentially a very important issue in both the theoretical and empirical analysis of female labor supply, even though in other contexts (for example, studies of consumer demand) corner solutions are often ignored. The chapter presents some “stylized facts” about female labor supply, and then discusses a number of theoretical models of special interest for understanding female labor supply. After considering empirical studies of the labor supply of women, the chapter concludes with some suggestions for future research. The chapter discusses major trends and cyclical patterns in time-series data, and then examines cross-sectional phenomena.

Do Minority-White Unemployment Differences Really Exist?

We develop a model of labor force status (federal employment, nonfederal employment, unemployment, and out of the labor force) that depends on human capital variables, local labor market conditions, and personal characteristics. According to the estimated model for white non-Hispanic males and females a substantial difference exists between blacks and white non-Hispanics even after correction for the control variables. However, the control variables explain almost all of the difference between Hispanics and white non-Hispanics.

Race, ranking, promotions, and pay at a federal facility: A logit analysis

This study analyzes rank assignments and promotions among a group of federal civilian employees at a U.S. Army base, with special attention to racial differences, by estimating a multinomial logit model and using pooled data from four different years. The authors find that position and compensation, although closely related, are by no means identical, nor are promotions and changes in pay. For example, the racial differential in compensation at this base is accompanied by a racial differential in ranking under which blacks are more likely than comparable whites to be in blue-collar occupations and less likely to be in white-collar occupations; whereas the gender differential in compensation is accompanied by a gender differential in ranking under which women are more likely than comparable men to be in low-level white-collar occupations and less likely to be in other occupations. Similarly, a narrowing of the racial differential in earnings over time coexisted with a racial differential in promotions that worked to the disadvantage of nonwhites.

New Jersey’s Family Cap Experiment: Do Fertility Impacts Differ by Racial Density?

Using experimental design, this research examines the impact of the nation’s first family cap policy, implemented in New Jersey, on the fertility behavior of welfare recipients. We explore whether the change in welfare parameters mandated by the policy induces differential impact among black, white, and Hispanic recipients. We examine if impacts are conditioned by racial‐ethnic group concentration. Results show that reduced welfare payments have contributed to a decline in births for black women. While we find a large response for blacks (on average), we find no response for blacks who live in geographic areas where they form a racial‐ethnic majority.

NEW JERSEY’S FAMILY CAP AND FAMILY SIZE DECISIONS: FINDINGS FROM A FIVE-YEAR EVALUATION

The causal relationship between the size of welfare benefits and the birth decisions of women on welfare has been explored in a number of studies using a variety of analytical approaches applied to vital statistics data, data from the Current Population Survey, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, or similar survey data. These studies typically use non-experimental methods to relate differences in birth rates or birth decisions across states to differences in welfare benefits levels. Analyses of this type have been criticized on several grounds. Benefits across states may be correlated with unobserved interstate differences that may also be related to birth decisions. Very often, these studies measure the key independent variable, welfare benefits level, as the cash benefit guarantee under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program for a household of fixed size, varying this amount by state of residence. Actual benefits paid will vary with household size, number of AFDC-eligible household members, other sources of income, and other factors.

Comparable Worth and Pay Equity: Recent Developments in the United States

This paper surveys the US experience with comparable worth and pay equity (CWPE). After reviewing the institutional setting (with special reference to anti-discrimination laws and affirmative action programs) into which CWPE was introduced, I note that CWPE has met with only minimal success at the federal level and has fostered some modest pay adjustments for government employees in some states. Employers have usually opposed or sought to limit CWPE pay adjustments; unions have sometimes been sceptical of CWPE as antithetical to collective bargaining; and in recent years even some proponents have become less positive in assessing CWPE.

Working Lives: The American Work Force since 1920. By John D. Owen. Lexington: D. C. Heath and Company, 1986. Pp. x, 218.

impact of womens employment on the family, the flip side of the effect of family roles on labor force participation. Much of this discussion draws on the work of sociologists; economists, however, have a poignant contribution to make. As we know, the gains to trade are greater the more the comparative advantage in producing goods differs between trading partners. As women acquire more market-oriented education and training, their market productivity rises relative to their home productivity, and the traditional specialization of the husband in wage-earning and of the wife in homemaking becomes increasingly less advantageous. The gains to marriage, in short, are reduced. The authors, nonetheless sanguine about the future of human development, are quick to point out the economic benefits to marriage other than specialization. The analytical framework is that of neoclassical economics: the treatment of family utility-maximization follows the innovative work of Gary Becker and Jacob Mincer, pioneered thirty years earlier by Margaret Reid. Marxist and institutionalist interpretations are provided, and the discussion of policy issues, a number of which are currently controversial, is well balanced and explicitly nonjudgmental. Proponents of a given school of thought may feel shortchanged. To my mind, the approach is appropriate in a text designed (correctly) to provide a coherent and comprehensive discussion of research to date on gender and work. The authors suggest that the main obstacle to equality between men and women may be the unequal distribution of labor in the home rather than womens lesser ability to perform other types of work. The book concludes with a restrained optimism that a gradual move toward a more egalitarian division of labor at home may have begun, if for no other reason than to accommodate the two-earner lifestyle.