Women’s Jobs and Marriage: Baby-Boom versus Baby-Bust (Travail des Femmes et Mariage: du baby-boom au baby-bust)

Studies of the determinants of labor supply do no typically include characteristics of the marriage market. What inspired this paper is Shoshana Grossbard-Shechtman's economic theory of marriage which considers how marriage market forces influence individual value of time in marriage. From pioneering work by Louis Henry and others, we know that changes in cohort size influence marriage market conditions. Consequently, it is hypothesized that changes in cohort size influence the value of time of women in marriage. Given that most women are married or plan to marry, this analysis implies that women born at times of increases in the number of births will be more likely to participate in the labor force. This hypothesis was using US. time series data on women's labor force participation and a number of other variables known to have an impact on labor supply. It is found that rapid increases in women's labor force participation coincided with rapid growth of the population entering marriage markets and therefore the creation of marriage market imbalances favoring men. Such rapid growth in population characterized not only the post World War II so-called baby-boom, but also an earlier period of growth in births starting in the late 1930s. As for the slow growth in women's labor force participation observed in recent years, it has coincided with the coming of age of successive generations of shrinking size born during the baby­ bust

Women’s Jobs and Marriage: Baby-Boom versus Baby-Bust (Travail des Femmes et Mariage: du baby-boom au baby-bust)

Studies of the determinants of labor supply do no typically include characteristics of the marriage market. What inspired this paper is Shoshana Grossbard-Shechtman's economic theory of marriage which considers how marriage market forces influence individual value of time in marriage. From pioneering work by Louis Henry and others, we know that changes in cohort size influence marriage market conditions. Consequently, it is hypothesized that changes in cohort size influence the value of time of women in marriage. Given that most women are married or plan to marry, this analysis implies that women born at times of increases in the number of births will be more likely to participate in the labor force. This hypothesis was using US. time series data on women's labor force participation and a number of other variables known to have an impact on labor supply. It is found that rapid increases in women's labor force participation coincided with rapid growth of the population entering marriage markets and therefore the creation of marriage market imbalances favoring men. Such rapid growth in population characterized not only the post World War II so-called baby-boom, but also an earlier period of growth in births starting in the late 1930s. As for the slow growth in women's labor force participation observed in recent years, it has coincided with the coming of age of successive generations of shrinking size born during the baby­ bust

The New Home Economics at Colombia and Chicago

When Jacob Mincer and Gary Becker started the New Home Economics (NHE) at Columbia University in the early 1960s, they expanded on the field of family and consumption economics that Hazel Kirk and Margaret Reid began in the early 1920s. This paper studies forty years of household economics, the decisions that household members make regarding any allocation of resources. These decisions may regard consumption, labor supply, transportation, fertility, or health. A review of the history of the NHE shows that Jacob Mincer's original contribution tends to be underestimated. This paper also argues that the growth of the NHE benefited from the concentration of talent at Columbia, organizational support, the diversity of a student body that included many talented women, the ideological commitments that students, many of them married, had for the study of home production, a departmental policy de-emphasizing gender-related politics, and relatively high levels of civility.Household Economics, History Of Economic Thought, Gender, Labor Supply,

Do not sell marriage short: Reply to strober

This paper explains why marriage market conditions may affect the participation of women in the labor force. In particular, it is claimed that changes in cohort size affect marriage market conditions and therefore women's labor-force participation. The paper also indicates how a theory of labor and marriage based on market analysis can possibly help women's causes. The paper first addresses theoretical issues raised by Strober. It then responds to her critique of empirical work.Marriage, female labor-force participation,