The evolution of female labour force participation in urban China

Starting from the late 1980s, despite rapid economic growth, female labour force participation in urban China has shown a general declining trend. Using repeated cross‐sections from the Chinese Household Income Project Series (CHIP), this paper attempts to systematically relate the decrease in the labour force participation of married women to the socio‐economic changes happening in urban China during the same period of time. Adopting both linear and nonlinear decomposition techniques, the results indicate that the changes in married women's labour force participation during the periods 1995–2002 and 2007–2013 can be explained by the concurrent changes in the distribution of socio‐economic variables, while the changes during the periods 1988–1995 and 2002–2007 are mostly driven by the leftward shift of married women's participation function.     

Young children and women's labour force participation in Russia, 1992–20041

We document the changing labour force participation patterns of women with young children in Russia during 1992–2004. In this period maternity leave benefits became less generous, and childcare was privatized and became increasingly scarce. Using nationally representative household survey data it is shown that in 1992, there was essentially no association between the probability of a woman being a labour force participant and her having a child under age 3. However, by 2004, having children under age 3 had become associated with significantly reduced participation and employment probabilities, conditional on other observable characteristics of women and their households, and local factors. Several potential explanations for these findings are discussed.     

Distortions,infrastructure, and female labor supply in developing countries

In this paper I document cross-country gaps between gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and GDP per worker. The gaps are driven mostly by a lower female labor force participation (LFP) in developing countries. Females began to participate more in the labor markets of these countries when more households acquired access to basic infrastructure and when distortive policies affecting the prices of household appliances were partially removed. I use a model of home production with endogenous labor force participation to account for these facts. I find that the prices of household appliances and access to infrastructure are quantitatively important in explaining cross-country labor supply differences.     

Sources of crime in the state of Veracruz: The role of female labor force participation and wage inequality

Abstract

In recent years, crime has become a serious concern in Mexico as its increase has detrimentally affected government institutions and economic growth. There is considerable speculation among policy analysts about the causes of the increase in crime. Whereas some analysts attribute the increase to a rise in income inequality, others believe internal migration and a loss of morals are the roots of criminal behavior. This research shows that at least for the Mexican state of Veracruz, wage inequality and labor force participation have an important impact on crime. When gender is considered, however, the impact is more complicated than it seems. An increase in women's labor force participation decreases the overall number of alleged violent offenders. However, the number of alleged rapists and grievous bodily harm offenders increases as women's wage distribution improves. The results shed light on the gender dimensions of the economics of crime.     

The Determinants of Married Women's Autonomy in Indonesia

Abstract

This paper investigates the determinants of married women's autonomy in Indonesia using the 2000 Indonesian Family Life Survey 3 (IFLS3). It considers the role of kinship norms and the effect of labor force participation on married women's autonomy. The measure of autonomy is based on self-reported answers to an array of questions relating to decision-making authority in the household. They include own-clothing, child-related and personal autonomy, physical mobility, and economic autonomy. The analysis examines if variations in women's autonomy are due to the prevailing kinship norms related to marriage in the community. In keeping with the anthropological literature, the analysis finds that living in patrilocal communities reduces physical autonomy for married women, whereas living in uxorilocal communities improves personal and child-related decision-making autonomy. Estimation results show that labor force participation, higher educational attainment, and increases in household wealth all have positive effects on married women's autonomy in Indonesia.     

Cultural Factors in Women's Labor Force Participation in Chile

Abstract

This article analyzes determinants of female participation in the Chilean labor force using classic determinants such as age, education, marital status, and number of children. The results indicate that the greater a woman's education level, the greater her labor participation; that older women participate more, though the rate of growth of this effect is decreasing; and the number of children that a woman has is negatively correlated to her decision to participate in the labor force. The article also examines machismo and other cultural values that influence female labor participation. The evidence suggests that the more the women have internalized machista and conservative cultural values, the less they participate in the labor market. Finally, the article concludes that the existence of these cultural factors as a group more than compensates for the positive effect of human capital variables and is statistically associated with low female labor participation in Chile.     

Dynamics of female labour force participation in France

This article formulates and estimates a structural intertemporal model of labour force participation. Relying on theoretical characterizations derived from an economic model of lifetime behaviour, we estimate a dynamic probit model with correlated random effects using longitudinal data to allow for a dynamic structure. The model is applied to a panel of married women drawn from the 1997–2002 French Labour Force surveys in order to represent their participation behaviour. It is estimated by maximum simulated likelihood. Our results show that women’s decisions to go out to work are characterized by significant state dependence, unobserved heterogeneity and negative serial correlation in the transitory error component. In addition, we find that the presence of young children in a woman’s household reduces her labour participation, but unequally according to their age and number. As expected, educational level has a positive impact on women’s participation. Last, a rise in the husband’s wage is found to raise female participation initially and to lower it subsequently. This empirical finding suggests that leisure may not systematically be a normal good, contrary to what is frequently assumed in the literature.     

Recalculating the agricultural labor force in China

In this study, we use a hypothetical method to recalculate the agricultural labor force based on statistical data on the labor force in China. We confirm the revised agricultural labor force data by estimating the agricultural production function. Through comparing the marginal labor productivity with the subsistence level of wages in the agricultural sector, we find that the overstated figures of agricultural labor force not only result in the underestimation of agricultural labor productivity but also are misleading by indicating that China reaches the Lewis turning point later than in actuality. The process of labor transfer in China, a large part of which is through rural migrant workers, has been much faster than expected.     

Narrowing the gender digital divide in Pakistan: Mobile phone ownership and female labor force participation

The unprecedented growth in access to mobile phones and smartphones has opened up new possibilities in the way people live and work. However, women in developing countries are unable to take advantage of this growth due to certain factors and socio-cultural norms that give rise to the gender digital divide. In this study, using the nationally representative Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (2019–2020), we investigate the gender and rural–urban (female) digital divide in a country with one of the most considerable digital divides. Furthermore, we employ an instrumental variable approach to study the effect of mobile or smartphone ownership on female labor force participation. The results indicate that institutional and sociocultural norms explain most of the ownership gap of mobile or smartphones between men and women. The instrumental variable approach demonstrates that mobile or smartphone ownership increases the participation of women in the labor force. We also find that the differences between observable characteristics, especially literacy and education, explain the rural–urban digital divide among females. Considering the importance of mobile or smartphone ownership in facilitating women's labor supply decisions, providing women with digital tools and upskilling them has wider implications for their economic well-being.     

The effect of working time and labor force participation on unemployment: A new argument in an old debate

This paper introduces a new argument into the theoretical literature on labor market effects of changes in working hours and labor force participation. We advance a general equilibrium model in which increased labor supply reduces unskilled unemployment via consumer demand: longer work hours and higher labor force participation imply higher incomes and less (leisure) time. In consequence, home production is reduced in favor of outsourcing domestic tasks to the market, shifting consumer demand toward unskill-intensive goods. Relative demand for unskilled labor rises and unemployment falls.     

Social norms,cooperation and inequality

This paper analyzes the outcomes that can be supported by social norms in a society of infinitely lived and patient agents that are randomly matched in pairs every period to play a given game. I find that any mutually beneficial outcome can be supported by a self-enforcing social norm under both perfect information and a simple local information system. These Folk Theorem results explain not only how social norms can provide incentives that support cooperation in a community, providing support to the concepts of social capital and corporate culture, but also how they can support inequality and discrimination.I am grateful to David Levine for invaluable guidance and ideas. I also thank Anna Aizer, Hongbin Cai, Walter Cont, Ernesto Dal Bó, Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, Federico Weinschelbaun, William Zame, anonymous referees and seminar participants at Universidad de Buenos Aires, UCLA, Universidad T. Di Tella, Harvard Business School and Stockholm School of Economics for very useful comments and discussions     

Long run trends in unemployment and labor force participation in urban China

Unemployment rates in countries across the world are strongly correlated with GDP. China is an unusual outlier from the pattern, whose official government statistics show abnormally low, and suspiciously stable, unemployment rates relative to its GDP. This paper reports estimates of China’s unemployment rate for its local urban Hukou population using a more reliable, nationally representative dataset for that population than in prior work, and which spans a longer period of history than in the past literature. The unemployment rates we calculate differ dramatically from those supplied in official data and are much more consistent with what is known about key historical developments in China’s labor market. The rate averaged 3.7% in 1988–1995, when the labor market was highly regulated and dominated by state-owned enterprises, but rose sharply during the period of mass layoff from 1995 to 2002, reaching an average of 9.5% in the subperiod from 2002 to 2009. The rates were even higher when demographic composition is held fixed. We can also calculate labor force participation rates, which are not available in official statistics at all. We find that they declined throughout the whole period, particularly in 1995–2002 when the unemployment rate increased most significantly. We also find that the impacts of these changes fell most heavily on the unskilled (women, those with less education, and younger individuals). Finally, estimates of unemployment and labor force participation rates are also provided for all urban residents, including migrants without local urban Hukou, and show the same patterns of change over time.     

Child labor and agricultural shocks

This paper examines the relationship between household income shocks and child labor. In particular, we investigate the extent to which transitory income shocks lead to increases in child labor and whether household asset holdings mitigate the effects of these shocks. Using data from a household panel survey in Tanzania, we find that both relationships are significant. We investigate mechanisms that could account for these results, including buffer stocks and borrowing.     

The Canada/Quebec pension plan disability program and the labor force participation of older men

The effects of the Canadian disability insurance program on the labor force participation of older men are studied using pooled cross-sectional time series data from ten Canadian provinces.     

Social norms and economic growth in a model with labor and capital income tax evasion

Empirical evidence suggests that low-income countries are characterized by high levels of labor and capital income tax evasion while the opposite is true for high-income countries. This paper proposes a model to study the relationship between economic growth and both types of income tax evasion. We show that the existence of a social norm towards tax compliance generates a complementarity between capital and labor income tax evasion which explains the decline of both the share of evaders in the population and the amount of tax evasion when countries accumulate capital. The model predicts that the level of tax morale is positively correlated with both types of income tax evasion and the level of income per capita, consistent with recent empirical evidence. Finally, a higher tax rate increases the share of evaders in the population and aggregate tax evasion.     

Conflict displacement and labor market outcomes in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina

The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina of the early nineties displaced 1.3 million people. This study uses longitudinal data to document the effects of this displacement on labor market outcomes. To account for endogeneity in displacement, I exploit the fact that the level of violence affected the decision to leave and that pre-war economic performance is orthogonal to local violence levels. I find that displaced Bosnians are less likely to be working relative to the people who stayed. Displaced men experience higher unemployment levels, and displaced women are more likely to drop out of the labor force.     

Child labor and schooling responses to anticipated income in South Africa

Forward looking, unconstrained households make child labor and schooling decisions considering their permanent income and weighing the relative returns to child time in various potential activities. The timing of anticipated changes in income should have no effect on child labor and schooling in a setting where households can borrow against permanent income. However, this study documents large increases in schooling attendance and declines in total hours worked when black South African families become eligible for fully anticipatable social pension income. As an explanation, the data are most consistent with liquidity constraints for black elder males forcing rural families into less schooling for boys than they would choose absent the constraint, perhaps because of schooling costs.     

Wages,participation and unemployment in the economic transition of urban China1

Wages, participation and unemployment are major topics for researchers of the labour market. How have these measures evolved in the economic transition of urban China? Have they evolved in accordance with those in the Statistical Yearbook of China (produced by the National Bureau of Statistics, China) and previous studies? We find that the estimated wage level based on Urban Household Survey (UHS) data was higher than that in the Statistical Yearbook in earlier years, but the relationship has reversed since 1999. Our estimated participation rate is lower than that of Giles et al. (2006) but higher than Dong et al. (2007) and Maurer‐Fazio et al. (2007) . The analysis shows that the unemployment rate is lower than that estimated with the China Urban Labor Survey data in Giles et al. (2005) . Our estimation results on unemployment rates turn out to be more similar to those in Dong et al. (2007) but are different from those in Hu and Sheng (2007) . This analysis provides the first systematic comparison of the wage level from different sources, and supplements the existing estimates on participation and unemployment using a more representative dataset for urban China.     

Childcare Costs and Migrant and Local Mothers' Labor Force Participation in Urban China

ABSTRACT

This study empirically analyzes the impact of childcare costs on the labor force participation (LFP) and childcare utilization of migrant and local mothers of preschool-age children in urban China, using data from the 2010 National Dynamic Monitoring Survey of Floating Populations. The estimates show that childcare costs have a strong negative effect on the LFP and childcare utilization of migrant and local mothers. Compared to local mothers, the LFP and childcare utilization rate of migrant mothers are, respectively, more and less sensitive to changes in childcare costs. The analysis indicates that the LFP and childcare choices of migrant mothers are more constrained by the lack of access to affordable childcare than are local mothers in China.     

Fertility,household structure,and parental labor supply: Evidence from China

This study examines the effects of fertility on household structure and parental labor supply in China. To solve the endogeneity problem, we use a unique survey on households with twin children and a comparison group of non-twin households. The ordinary least squares estimates show a negative correlation between fertility and parental labor supply in rural China. Using twinning as a natural experiment, we do not find evidence on the negative effects of fertility on parental labor supply. By contrast, we find that the twinning-induced increase in fertility significantly enhances the coresidence of grandparents in rural China. We suggest that the negative effects of fertility on parental labor supply are mitigated by the childcare provided by grandparents in rural China. We also find that fertility does not induce coresidence of grandparents in urban China. Our results have important implications for population and public childcare policies.