Divorce Risk, Wages, and Working Wives: A Quantitative Life-Cycle Analysis of Female Labor Force Participation / Raquel Fernández, Joyce C. Wong.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fernández, Raquel.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Wong, Joyce C.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w19869.

NBER working paper series no. w19869

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Divorce Risk, Wages, and Working Wives

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2014.

Summary:

This paper develops a quantitative life-cycle model to study the increase in married women's labor force participation (LFP). We calibrate the model to match key life-cycle statistics for the 1935 cohort and use it to assess the changed environment faced by the 1955 cohort. We find that a higher divorce probability and changes in wage structure are each able to explain a large proportion of the LFP increase. Higher divorce risk increases LFP not because the latter contributes to higher marital assets or greater labor market experience, however. Instead, it is the result of conflicting spousal preferences towards the adjustment of marital consumption in the face of increased divorce risk.

Notes:

Print version record

January 2014.