Hostname: page-component-669899f699-vbsjw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-29T06:19:09.122Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

What determines women's labor supply? The role of home productivity and social norms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 August 2022

Farzana Afridi ,
Monisankar Bishnu  and
Kanika Mahajan
Farzana Afridi
Affiliation:
Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi and IZA (Bonn), New Delhi, India
Monisankar Bishnu*
Affiliation:
Indian Statistical Institute, CAMA (ANU), CEPAR, 7, S.J.S. Sansanwal Marg, New Delhi 110016, India
Kanika Mahajan
Affiliation:
Ashoka University, Haryana, India
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

We highlight the role of home productivity and social norms in explaining the gender gap in labor force participation (LFP), and the non-monotonic relationship of women's LFP with their education in India. We construct a model of couples’ time allocation decisions allowing for both market and home productivity to improve with own education. Incorporating individual preference to produce a minimum level of the home good due to social norms, we show that our theoretical model can closely replicate the U-shaped relationship between women's education and their labor supply. Our analysis suggests that home productivity, along with social benchmarks on couples’ time allocation to home good, can be critical determinants of women's labor supply in developing countries.

Keywords

Educationhome productionIndiawomen's labor supplysocial norms

JEL classification

E24: Employment • Unemployment • Wages • Intergenerational Income Distribution • Aggregate Human Capital • Aggregate Labor Productivity J22: Time Allocation and Labor Supply J16: Economics of Gender • Non-labor Discrimination
Type
Research Paper
Information
Journal of Demographic Economics , Volume 90 , Issue 1 , March 2024 , pp. 55 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © Université catholique de Louvain 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Abel, A. (2006) Equity premia with benchmark levels of consumption: closed-form results. NBER Working Papers 12290. National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.Google Scholar
Afridi, F., Dinkelman, T. and Mahajan, K. (2018) Why are fewer married women joining the work force in rural India? A decomposition analysis over two decades. Journal of Population Economics 31(3), 783–818.Google Scholar
Aguiar, M. and Hurst, E. (2007) Measuring trends in leisure: the allocation of time over five decades. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 122(3), 969–1006.Google Scholar
Albanesi, S. and Olivetti, C. (2009) Home production, market production and the gender wage gap: incentives and expectations. Review of Economic Dynamics 12(1), 80–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Attanasio, O., Low, H. and Sánchez-Marcos, V. (2008) Explaining changes in female labor supply in a life-cycle model. American Economic Review 98(4), 1517–1552.Google Scholar
Barnett, R. C., Bhattacharya, J. and Bunzel, H. (2013) Deviant generations, Ricardian equivalence, and growth cycles. Economic Theory 52(1), 367–396.Google Scholar
Becker, G. (1981) A Treatise On The Family. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Behrman, J. R., Foster, A. D., Rosenzweig, M. R. and Vashishtha, P. (1999) Women's schooling, home teaching, and economic growth. Journal of Political Economy 107(4), 682–714.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benhabib, J., Rogerson, R. and Wright, R. (1991) Homework in macroeconomics: household production and aggregate fluctuations. Journal of Political Economy 99(6), 1166–1187.Google Scholar
Bernhardt, A., Field, E., Pande, R., Rigol, N., Schaner, S. and Troyer-Moore, C. (2018) Male Social Status and Women's Work. In AEA Papers and Proceedings, Vol. 47, 363–367.Google Scholar
Bertrand, M., Cortes, P., Olivetti, C. and Pan, J. (2020) Social norms, labour market opportunities, and the marriage gap between skilled and unskilled women. The Review of Economic Studies 88(4), 1936–1978.Google Scholar
Bishnu, M. (2013) Linking consumption externalities with optimal accumulation of human and physical capital and intergenerational transfers. Journal of Economic Theory 148(2), 720–742.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buraschi, A. and Jiltsov, A. (2007) Habit formation and macroeconomic models of the term structure of interest rates. The Journal of Finance 62(6), 3009–3063.Google Scholar
Cameron, L. A., Dowling, J. M. and Worswick, C. (2001) Education and labor market participation of women in Asia: evidence from five countries. Economic Development and Cultural Change 49(3), 459–477.Google Scholar
Chakraborty, S., Thompson, J. C. and Yehoue, E. B. (2015) Culture in development. The World Bank Economic Review 29(1), S238–S246.Google Scholar
Chiappori, P.-A. (1988) Rational household labor supply. Econometrica 56(1), 63–90.Google Scholar
Clark, A. E. and Oswald, A. J. (1998) Comparison-concave utility and following behaviour in social and economic settings. Journal of Public Economics 70(1), 133–155.Google Scholar
Duesenberry, J. S. and Oxford University Press (1949) Income, saving, and the theory of consumer behavior. A Galaxy book, GB 180. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Dupor, B. and Liu, W.-F. (2003) Jealousy and equilibrium overconsumption. American Economic Review 93(1), 423–428.Google Scholar
Fernández, R. (2013) Cultural change as learning: the evolution of female labor force participation over a century. American Economic Review 103(1), 472–500.Google Scholar
Fernández, R., Fogli, A. and Olivetti, C. (2004) Mothers and sons: preference formation and female labor force dynamics. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 119(4), 1249–1299.Google Scholar
Field, E., Pande, R., Rigol, N., Schaner, S. and Troyer Moore, C. (2021) On her own account: how strengthening women's financial control impacts labor supply and gender norms. American Economic Review 111(7), 2342–2375.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gobbi, P. E. (Jul. 2018) Childcare and commitment within households. Journal of Economic Theory 176, 503–551.Google Scholar
Goldin, C. (1994) The U-shaped female labor force function in economic development and economic history. Tech. Rept. National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Goldin, C. (2006) The quiet revolution that transformed women's employment, education, and family. American Economic Review 96(2), 1–21.Google Scholar
Goldin, C. and Katz, L. F. (2000) Career and marriage in the age of the pill. American Economic Review 90(2), 461–465.Google Scholar
Greenwood, J., Seshadri, A. and Vandenbroucke, G. (2005) The baby boom and baby bust. American Economic Review 95(1), 183–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenwood, J., Seshadri, A. and Yorukoglu, M. (2005) Engines of liberation. The Review of Economic Studies 72(1), 109–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gronau, R. (1977) Leisure, home production, and work—the theory of the allocation of time revisited. Journal of Political Economy 85(6), 1099–1123.Google Scholar
Guryan, J., Hurst, E. and Kearney, M. (2008) Parental education and parental time with children. Journal of Economic Perspectives 22(3), 23–46.Google Scholar
Heath, R. and Tan, X. (2020) Intrahousehold bargaining, female autonomy, and labor supply: theory and evidence from India. Journal of the European Economic Association 18(4), 1928–1968.Google Scholar
Klasen, S., Le, T. T. N., Pieters, J. and Santos Silva, M. (2021) What drives female labour force participation? Comparable micro-level evidence from eight developing and emerging economies. The Journal of Development Studies 57(3), 417–442.Google Scholar
Klasen, S. and Pieters, J. (2015) What explains the stagnation of female labor force participation in Urban India? The World Bank Economic Review 29(3), 449–478.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kleven, H., Landais, C. and Søgaard, J. E. (Jan. 2018) Children and gender inequality: evidence from Denmark. Tech. Rep. National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Lam, D. and Duryea, S. (1999) Effects of schooling on fertility, labor supply, and investments in children, with evidence from Brazil. Journal of Human Resources 34(1), 160–192.Google Scholar
Ljungqvist, L. and Uhlig, H. (2000) Tax policy and aggregate demand management under catching up with the Joneses. American Economic Review 90(3), 356–366.Google Scholar
Motkuri, V. and Revathi, E. (2020) Private expenditure on education in India: national level analysis exploring NSSO survey (CES and SCE estimates).Google Scholar
OECD (2012) Education at a glance 2012.Google Scholar
Olivetti, C. (2006) Changes in women's hours of market work: the role of returns to experience. Review of Economic Dynamics 9(4), 557–587.Google Scholar
Siegel, C. (Mar. 2017) Female relative wages, household specialization and fertility. Review of Economic Dynamics 24, 152–174.Google Scholar
Thomas, D. (1994) Like father, like son; like mother, like daughter: parental resources and child height. Journal of Human Resources 29, 950–988.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Afridi et al. supplementary material

Afridi et al. supplementary material
Download Afridi et al. supplementary material(File)
File 423.8 KB