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Labor Supply of Husbands and Wives: A Simultaneous Equations Approach

1988; The MIT Press; Volume: 70; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/1928306

1530-9142

Shelly Lundberg,

Work-Family Balance Challenges

Labor supply functions for married men and women are formulated as a dynamic simultaneous equations system which is estimated using panel data. Controlling for fixed individual effects allows marginal labor supply responses to be disentangled from permanent patterns in hours worked due to assortative mating. The results suggest that the labor supply of husbands and wives without pre-school children is not jointly determined in the short run while families with young children exhibit strong interactions in work hours and negative cross-earnings effects. Neither the joint utility model of family labor supply nor an ad hoc traditional family model is supported by these results. The data are for the United States and concern 381 couples from the Denver Income Maintenance Experiment. (EXCERPT)