The Impact of Income Taxation on the Labor Supply of Part-time and Full-time Workers

This paper estimates the effect of income taxation on the labor supply of part-time and full-time workers in the United States. Using a model that incorporates the endogeneity of the net wage rate and the virtual income, and correcting for self-selection into part-time and full-time jobs, the results indicate that part-time workers are relatively more responsive to changes in income tax than full-time workers. Estimated wage elasticities are relatively larger for part-time than for full-time workers.The simulation results indicate that income tax has a disincentive effect on both part-time and full-time workers, with part-time and full-time workers reducing their labor supply by 0.87 and 0.58 hours, respectively, if a 5% tax is imposed. However, the percentage reduction in hours of work is very small, and a tax policy may have little effect on the labor supply of workers.The results seem to suggest that female and black part-time workers are more likely to drop out of the labor force at higher levels of income tax. It also tests the hypothesis that the labor supply behavior of parttime and full-time workers differs.The test results indicate that the determinants of the labor supply of part-time workers are different from those of full-time workers. It is noted that there is a significant difference between the labor supply of male part-time and female parttime workers, as well as between the black part-time and white part-time workers. In order to reduce voluntary unemployment in market activities among married females and blacks, the government can encourage part-time work by sponsoring legislation or instituting a scheme that will allow part-time workers to pay relatively less in payroll taxes.     

Female employment growth in Britain, 1979–92: some competing hypotheses ∗

Over the period 1979–92, the gender and status composition of employment has undergone significant change in Britain, which cannot be attributed merely to cyclical influences. In this paper changes in the pattern of employment by occupation, gender and part-time and full-time status are decomposed to cast some light on three hypotheses (buffer stock, substitution and segregation) which are designed to explain the growth of female employment in Britain over the period 1979–92. The results reveal that women have made some progress in achieving full-time employment positions, after correction for the influence of structural change and the declining full-time share of employment. It is noted, however, that following the labour market legislation of the 1980s full-time employment is not necessarily more secure than part-time. The long run substitution of part-time for full-time employment has benefited the employment of women, even though their share of part-time employment has declined. The analysis informs the debate on the flexible firm at least in respect of numerical flexibility.     

The rise of part-time employment in the great recession: Its causes and macroeconomic effects

During the Great Recession, the U.S. economy witnessed a substantial rise in part-time employment for a sustained period. We extend the New Keynesian unemployment model by Galí et al. (2012) to allow substitutions between full-time and part-time labor, and estimate the model’s parameters by using the Bayesian method. In our model, households and firms can optimally allocate full-time and part-time labor, and disturbances exist in part-time labor supply (household disutility from part-time labor) and part-time labor demand (firms’ efficiency to use part-time labor). As for the Great Recession, the initial increase in part-time employment at the outset of the financial crisis is mostly explained by the rise of the risk premia; the persistently high level of part-time employment in the later period is mainly explained by an exogenous increase in part-time labor supply. A part-time labor supply shock also explains a significant portion of slow recovery in the gross wage during the recession, as the shock lowers the part-time wage and the proportion of full-time workers in total employment. Notably, the results from our model suggest that though the transition from full-time to part-time jobs contributed to mitigating the sharp contraction in total employment and labor force during the Great Recession, it played only a limited role in relieving recessionary pressure.     

Structural Change in the Probability of Part-Time Participation by Married Women

Results from an ordered probit model are provided at two points in time for the probability of participation. The findings indicate a structural change between 1976 and 1986 in the determinants of whether married women choose non-participation, full-time or part-time participation. In 1976 more education and experience shifted women out of non-participation and into full-time and part-time participation. By 1986 more education and experience shifted women out of non-participation and part-time work into full-time work.     

Occupational sex segregation in the UK 1979–89: the role of part-time employment

In this article, the pattern of occupational segregation by sex in the UK between 1979 and 1989 is explored through the decomposition of the new Karmel Maclachlan index. Over the upturn, 1983–89, integration of the sexes, as measured by the Composition Effect occurred faster for full-time employment than total (full-time and part-time) employment. On the other hand, integration, in general, proceeded more slowly over the downturn of 1979–83 but total employment showed a more rapid rate of desegregation than full-time employment. Further analysis of the index, based on notional redistributions of part-time and full-time employment, confirms that part-time employment appears to be disproportionately responsible for the overall level of occupational sex segregation and to inhibit its decline over the upswing. These results are attributed to the different labour supply behaviour of males and females and the propensity of employers to treat part-time employees as a flexible reserve. Policies are outlined to counteract both the unequal treatment of part-time workers, particularly women, and the allocative inefficiency caused by the growth of part-time employment, relative to full-time employment.     

Is Part-Time Employment after Childbirth a Stepping-Stone into Full-Time Work? A Cohort Study for East and West Germany

Does part-time work support first-time mothers’ employment by providing a stepping-stone into full-time work in Germany? Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel from 1984–2012, this study compares three different age cohorts of first-time East and West German mothers to investigate whether there has been any convergence between East and West Germany in the way women use part-time employment. Results show that mothers in West Germany in all cohorts tended to remain in part-time employment for longer periods than those in East Germany. Part-time employment more often provided a stepping-stone into full-time employment in East Germany than in West Germany. East German women who gave birth after reunification were less likely than older cohorts to experience a transition from part-time to full-time work. Thus, part-time employment not followed by subsequent full-time work has become more common in the East.     

Schooling,fertility and the labour market experience of married women

This paper discusses the role of formal schooling and child rearing in the determination of career path choice of women in the US. Data were collected from the adult educational component of the 1991 US National Household Education Survey. Data are available for about 12,568 respondents, of whom 6860 are female. It is established that, amongst others, expected earnings significantly affect the career path and the hours of work chosen by American women. Based on the results of the study, a number of conclusions have been drawn: 1) expectations of earnings affect women's choice of career path, including decisions such as labor market participation, the part-time work versus full-time work decision, and occupational choice; 2) the indirect and indirect effects of schooling and other variables on regime choice has been studied; the impact of schooling and fertility on women's labor supply follows an intuitively plausible pattern; 3) evidence provided here on the private rate of return to education confirms the findings of Bland that part-time workers do not receive a lower return than others; and 4) the importance of correcting for endogeneity and sample selection biases in the problem of earnings determination and career choice has been established.     

Does housework lower wages? Evidence for Britain

This paper uses the British Household Panel Survey to present the first estimates of the housework-wage relationship in Britain. Controlling for permanent unobserved heterogeneity, we find that housework has a negative impact on the wages of men and women, both married and single, who work full-time. Among women working part-time, only single women suffer a housework penalty. The housework penalty is uniform across occupations within full-time jobs but some part-time jobs appear to be more compatible with housework than others. We find tentative evidence that the housework penalty is larger when there are children present.     

The effect of the timing and spacing of births on the level of labor market involvement of married women

We analyze the effect of the timing and spacing of births on the labor supply of married women in a framework that accounts for the endogeneity of the labor market and fertility decisions, for the heterogeneity of the effects of children on labor supply and their correlation with the fertility decisions, and for the correlation of sequential labor market decisions. Delaying the first birth leads to higher pre-natal levels of labor market involvement and reduces the negative effect of the first child on labor supply. The effect of the second child increases with the spacing of the two births as women, returning to work after the first birth, finance child care time increasingly through reductions in market time. Individual heterogeneity is considerable; women with lower propensity for children have the first birth later in life and space subsequent births more closely together, work more before the birth of the first child, but face larger effects of children on their labor supply.     

The Contribution of Employment Separation to Teenage Unemployment*

In this paper we analyze the relationship between labour market flows and the unemployment rate of teenagers compared to males aged 25–54 years. For 1979–80 teenagers separated from employment at approximately five times the rate of adult males and this was the principal factor associated with their high rate of unemployment. Job-finding success from unemployment and from outside the labour force is approximately the same for each labour market group. A special feature is the analysis of gross flows between full-time and part-time employment. Labour market flows involving part-time employment account for little of the unemployment rate difference.     

Partial unemployment insurance benefits and the transition rate to regular work

In Finland, unemployed workers who are looking for a full-time job but take up a part-time or very short full-time job may qualify for partial unemployment benefits. In exchange for partial benefits, these applicants must continue their search of regular full-time work. This study analyzes the implications of working on partial benefits for subsequent transitions to regular employment. The timing-of-events approach is applied to distinguish between causal and selectivity effects associated with the receipt of partial benefits. The results suggest that partial unemployment associated with short full-time jobs facilitates transitions to regular employment. Also part-time working on partial benefits may help men (but not women) in finding a regular job afterwards.     

HOUSEWORK VS. MARKETWORK: SOME EVIDENCE HOW THE DECISION IS MADE

Empirical research using the opportunity cost approach to estimating the value of non-market work of women tends to focus on the value of actual or potential output produced at home and expected or actual earnings, and assume that a rational decision involves choosing the higher one. Evidence derived from data on young married women suggests that full-time homemakers frequently are unable to provide estimates either of their potential earnings or of the lowest wage they would accept to enter the labor market, and that such estimates as they do provide are not soundly based. We also found that using wages of women in the labor market to estimate the value of the home time of full-time homemakers involves upward bias. We conclude that there are good reasons for caution in using the opportunity cost approach.     

The Distributive and Labor Supply Impact of the Minimum Insertion Income: The Case of Italy

This paper analyzes the redistributive and labor supply effects of extending at national level the Minimum Insertion Income, introduced experimentally in 1999 in some Italian municipalities. We develop a behavioral microsimulation tax-benefit model that allows for simultaneous labor supply decisions by household members, endogenous choice between dependent employment and self-employment, complete representation of the current Italian tax-benefit system. The results show a positive impact on both inequality and poverty, while overall labor supply reduces. On average magnitude of labor supply disincentive is small for married individuals, relatively larger for single persons and, within this category, for women than men.     

Part-time work, school success and school leaving

In this paper, we analyse part-time employment of teenagers still in full-time education, their academic performance, and their school leaving decisions. Our estimation strategy takes account of the possible interdependencies of these events and distinguishes between two alternative states to full time education: entering the labour force full time and going on to further training. We model this decision in a flexible way. Our analysis is based on data from the UK National Child Development Study, which has an unusually rich set of variables on school and parental characteristics. Our main finding is that working part time while in full-time education has only small adverse effects on exam performance for females, and no effects for males. The effect of part-time work on the decision to stay on at school is also negative, but small, and marginally significant for males, but not for females. Other important determinants of exam success as well as the continuation decision are parental ambitions about the child’s future academic career.     

Making Labor Flexible: The Recomposition of Tijuana's Maquiladora Female Labor Force

This article revisits the debate over the benefits of export-oriented manufacturing employment for women by taking up Linda Lim's (1990) critique that such research is often biased in its methods and conclusions. Using a sample of 198 women workers from the 1993 Labor Trajectories Survey, I conduct a multivariate statistical analysis to test whether the social and demographic characteristics of the female maquiladora labor force influence their position in the labor market. I find that maquiladoras in Tijuana, Mexico, employ married women, women with children, and women with low levels of education who constitute a low-wage sector of the labor force with few other employment alternatives. In the drive to keep production costs low, multinational manufacturers have tapped into this low-wage labor force, thereby taking advantage of women's labor market disadvantages and making a labor force willing to accept more "flexible" terms of employment.     

WHO GETS MATERNITY LEAVE?: THE CASE OF MALAYSIA

This paper evaluates a maternity leave policy designed to reduce gender inequality in the labor market. It examines the extent to which Malaysia's paid maternity leave policy provides working women with leave as a condition of their employment. Since all women are not the same, a policy may benefit some women and not others. Using data from the Second Malaysian Family Life Survey, the paper estimates the likelihood of a woman's receiving maternity leave as a function of demographic, employment, and occupational variables. The results show that being Indian, having higher education, holding jobs that are full-time and all-year, holding jobs with higher earnings at the start, and holding professional and clerical occupations increase the likelihood that a woman will receive maternity leave. These results imply that Malaysia's maternity leave policy does not provide broad coverage to working women—that is, only some women under some conditions in some occupations tend to receive leave. The evidence suggests that women in the primary sector of the labor market receive leave while women in the secondary sector do not.     

Interindustry part-time and full-time wage differentials: regional and national analysis

This paper provides more evidence that the wage differential is far smaller than is suggested by simple comparison of gross wages of full-time and part-time workers. It is noted that to obtain a more reasonable measure of the full-time and part-time wage differential, it is necessary to adjust for differences in workers' characteristics, labour market conditions and sample selection. It is found that, in general, full-time and part-time workers exhibit different personal characteristics. In particular, full-time workers possess more human capital and experience than part-timers. Also, labour market conditions such as unions and pension plans favour full-timers. These differences may partly account for the wage disparity between full-time and part-time workers. It was noted that the nonrandomness of the workers into full-time and part-time jobs influences the wage determination of both full-time and part-time workers. The results indicate that the adjustment of the wage equations to reflect the above mentioned differences reduces the national wage differential between full-time and part-time workers by 10%. The reduction is even larger across regions and industries. Another finding was that the wage determination processes between full-time and part-time workers do differ.     

THE IMPACT OF CHILDCARE COSTS ON THE FULL-TIME/PART-TIME EMPLOYMENT DECISIONS OF AUSTRALIAN MOTHERS

Using data from the HILDA (Household Income and Labour Dynamics), this paper examines the implications of childcare costs on maternal employment status by distinguishing between full-time and part-time work. Our empirical approach uses an ordered probit model taking into account the endogeneity associated with both wages and childcare costs. Results indicate that childcare costs have a statistically insignificant effect on the decision to work either full time or part time. Moreover, the reported elasticities of part-time and full-time work with respect to childcare costs are relatively low. Finally, our results indicate that Australian mothers respond to an increase in wages by increasing both their full-time and part-time employment. Conversely, an increase in the number of young children (particularly under four years of age) and an increase in non-labour income reduce the likelihood of the mother is observed to be working.     

EARNINGS INEQUALITY, LABOUR SUPPLY AND SCHOOLING IN HUSBAND–WIFE FAMILIES

This paper describes the association between market work and earnings inequality across families over the life cycle and over calendar time with special attention to the different experiences of college‐educated and high‐school‐educated people. A concise and effective accounting framework is developed that allows for an assessment of the effect of the growing market employment of married women on family earnings inequality. Applying this framework to pseudo‐panel data from successive Current Population Surveys indicates that the increase in wives' employment has diminished the growth in family earnings inequality especially for well‐educated couples. Inferences about the level and change in earnings inequality depend on the degree of labor market attachment of the people studied especially in the case of wives.     

Employment Patterns of Husbands and Wives and Family Income Distribution in Italy (1977–98)

The pattern of employment among men and women has changed remarkably over the past decades. The growth in the participation in the labor market of women with high-income husbands has heightened concerns that wives' earnings may increase income inequality among married couples, especially in countries like Italy, the U.K., and the U.S., where more noticeable growth of income inequality during the past decade has accompanied changes in employment levels. In this paper we attempt to measure the impact of the changes of women and men's employment patterns on the distribution of income among Italian households, by considering regional differences, using micro data from the Historical Archive of the Bank of Italy Survey of Household Income and Wealth (SHIW) for the period 1977–98. Our results indicate that total income distribution would have been more unequal without women's labor income.