Specialization, Inequality, and the Labor Market for Married Women

1. Specialization, Inequality, and the Labor Market for Married Women by Casey B. Mulligan and Yona Rubinstein University of Chicago and Tel Aviv University

2. Inequality & Married Female Labor Supply usual analysis (eg., Mincer 1962): between gender wage inequality (aka, �gender wage gap�) wage inequality within gender has been neglected. Although related with literatures on: added worker effect spousal �cross-effects� inequality within gender may be important, and interact with the gender wage gap ? the structure of wages matters more than previously recognized Argentina version had: AR 1931-2001: even more substantial political and SS changesArgentina version had: AR 1931-2001: even more substantial political and SS changes

3. Simple Specialization Model fixed costs of attachment to a full-time career, esp for wife home production is weighted sum of husband and wife nonmarket time h not too small �> wives at corner solution in terms of attachment to full-time labor force Argentina version had: AR 1931-2001: even more substantial political and SS changesArgentina version had: AR 1931-2001: even more substantial political and SS changes

4. Traditional vs Dual-Earner Status

5. labor supply functions

6. A Few Results secondary vs. primary earner: wife less likely to be engaged in full-time careers unless her wage exceeds her husband�s husband�s labor supply is not the mirror image of wife; over some range more wives can enter the labor force than leave critical w* increases with wm Argentina version had: AR 1931-2001: even more substantial political and SS changesArgentina version had: AR 1931-2001: even more substantial political and SS changes

9. Procedure for Simulating Primary Earnership(based on gender wage gap series only)

10. Procedure for Simulating Primary Earnership(based on male inequality series only)

11. Inequality and the Gender Incidence of Primary Earnership, 1968-2000

12. The Gender Incidence of Primary Earnership � 3 measures

13. Married Female Labor Supply Growth is Mainly a Switch to Full-time

14. Married Female Labor Supply Growth is Mainly a Switch to Full-time

15. Full-Time Female Employment by Primary Earnership

16. Optimal Family Labor supply

17. Families Partitioned by Tastes

18. The Gender Wage Gap by Race, 1968-2000

19. Full-Time Wives by Race, 1968-2000

20. Responsiveness to Inequality

21. Juhn-Murphy test for �cross-effects� 1969-89 for each year, partition couples according to the husband�s wage decile in husband wage distribution top deciles have, as a group, relatively more husband wage growth. presumably have a gender gap that is: larger closing more slowly, or even opening if husband wage matters, what should happen to wife labor supply in the high decile group? gender gap closing less ? wife Ls grows less in top deciles gender gap level is less + growing inequality ? wife Ls grows more (this effect ignored by Juhn-Murphy)

22. Gender Wage Gaps, Juhn-Murphy Partitions, 1963-2000

23. Wives� Full-time Work, Juhn-Murphy Partitions, 1963-2000 @ finish @@ finish @

24. Juhn-Murphy Partitions, 1963-2000

25. The Gender Gap May Itself Respond to Inequality composition bias female entrants are disproportionately wives of high-wage husbands male exits among low wage men response of market-specialized investment (Ben-Porath and Rosen) initially decreases wages of wives ? gender gap widens (1970�s?) later increases wages of wives (with interest) ? gender gap closes even more (1980�s) investment patterns associated in part with occupation and work experience: Blau and Kahn

26. Implications of Specialization for the Married Female Labor Market increased female labor occurs primarily among married women female labor grew more rapidly in the 1970's and 1980's, compared to the 1990's or previous decades despite significant progress, still less than half of married women work full-time full-year female labor increased even when the gender gap failed to close the lower percentiles of the wives wage distribution have not fallen, while the lower percentiles of the husband wage distribution have fallen dramatically recent labor force entrants include wives with husbands� wages that were high and growing the measured gender wage gap closes in the 1980's, in large part as a response to wives' growing work experience and changing occupation

27. Alternative Hypotheses other �supply shifts� �tastes� fertility decline availability of household appliances divorce more linear models of husband�s wages closing gender wage gap (with a composition bias in the measured time series) changing discrimination (not apparent in wages)

28. Housework Trends household technology, and declining fertility, hypotheses imply that male and female housework time should decline (divorce?) specialization implies that male housework time increases, but less than female time decreases �tastes shifts� imply more male, and less female, housework Juster and Stafford survey male housework time increases from the 1960's to the 1980's female housework time decreases the male increase is no more than the female decrease Robinson and Godbey (1997) study of 1965-85 changes: male �family care� time increased by 4.2 hours per week female family care time fell by 9.3 hours per week

29. The �Added Worker Effect� Mincer (1966): group female labor force participation rates are countercyclical, especially among nonwhites, 1948-60 Also true since 1960 (married women�s hours are countercyclical) Family economics is important? Not so evident from microeconometric studies