Women, War, and Wages: The Effect of Female Labor Supply on the Wage Structure at Midcentury

Acemoğlu, Daron; Autor, David H.; Lyle, David S.

doi:10.1086/383100

Cited by 497 publications

(385 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…World War II was a huge demand shock for female labor: average female participation jumped from 28 to 34 percent between 1940and 1945(Acemoglu, Autor, and Lyle 2004, and among women whose husbands served in the armed forces participation rates exceeded 50 percent. We show that such a demand shock should lead to a temporary baby boom and an asymmetric evolution of the labor-force participation of older and younger women in the decades after the shock.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Baby Boom and World War II: A Macroeconomic Analysis

Doepke¹,

Hazan

Maoz

2015

Review of Economic Studies

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We argue that one major cause of the U.S. postwar baby boom was the increased demand for female labor during World War II. We develop a quantitative dynamic general equilibrium model with endogenous fertility and female labor-force participation decisions. We use the model to assess the long-term implications of a one-time demand shock for female labor, such as the one experienced by American women during wartime mobilization. For the war generation, the shock leads to a persistent increase in female labor supply due to the accumulation of work experience. In contrast, younger women who turn adult after the war face increased labor-market competition, which impels them to exit the labor market and start having children earlier. In our calibrated model, this general-equilibrium effect generates a substantial baby boom followed by a baby bust, as well as patterns for agespecific labor-force participation and fertility rates that are consistent with U.S data.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Baby Boom and World War II: A Macroeconomic Analysis

Doepke¹,

Hazan

Maoz

2015

Review of Economic Studies

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“…Data on average height for the three waves are taken from A' Hearn et al (2009). Height is often employed in the economic history literature because it provides researchers with a measure of the stock of nutritional investment and therefore important indirect information on changes in the well-being of populations (Fogel et al, 1982;A'Hearn and Vecchi, 2011). 14 To measure structural transformation we employ an index of industrialisation computed by Ciccarelli and Fenoaltea (2012) and defined as the share of value added in manufacturing (excluding construction) over the share of the male population over age 15 (data are from census).…”

Section: Data and Descriptive Statisticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…3 The relevance of each of the above-mentioned channels for the position of women in society has already been recognized, in isolation, in the relevant literature. For instance, the impact on women's labor force participation of men's absence -as the result of war -is studied by Duby and Perrot (1998), Goldin (1991), Acemoglu et al (2004), Doepke et al (2012), and Goldin and Olivetti (2013). The influence of women's inferior physical strength on human capital accumulation is modeled by Galor and Weil (1996), while a similar argument is advanced by Alesina et al (2011) to test Boserup's (1970) hypothesis that plough (rather than shifting) cultivation determined the historical gender division of labor.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Women, medieval commerce, and the education gender gap

Bertocchi

Bozzano

2016

Journal of Comparative Economics

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu We investigate the historical determinants of the education gender gap in Italy in the late nineteenth century, immediately following the country's Unification. We use a comprehensive newly-assembled database including 69 provinces over twenty-year sub-samples covering the 1861-1901 period. We find robust evidence that female primary school attainment, relative to that of males, is positively associated with the medieval pattern of commerce, along the routes that connected Italian cities among themselves and with the rest of the world. The effect of medieval commerce is particularly strong at the non-compulsory upperprimary level and persists even after controlling for alternative long-term determinants reflecting the geographic, economic, political, and cultural differentiation of medieval Italy. The long-term influence of medieval commerce quickly dissipates after national compulsory primary schooling is imposed at Unification, suggesting that the channel of transmission was the larger provision of education for girls in commercial centers. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SJEL Classification: E02, H75, I25, J16, N33, O15

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“…Since people may also respond to regional wage differentials, it is also relevant to test whether wage spillovers exist via model (2). Finally, we control for endogeneity of the wage rate as higher participation can reduce wages due to the larger labour supply that it implies (Blundell et al, 2003;Acemoglu et al, 2004;Elhorst, 2008).…”

Section: Extension Of the Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regional labour force participation across the European Union: a time–space recursive modelling approach with endogenous regressors

Vega

Elhorst

2016

Spatial Economic Analysis

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Regional labour force participation across the European Union: a time-space recursive modelling approach with endogenous regressors. Spatial Economic Analysis. Although there is an abundant regional labour market literature taking a spatial perspective, only a few studies have explored extending the analysis of labour force participation with spatial effects. This paper revisits this important issue, proposing a timespace recursive modelling approach that builds on and appraises Fogli and Veldkamp's methodology from 2011 and finding for the United States that participation rates vary with past values in nearby regions. Major shortcomings in their study are corrected for, including stationarity and the control for endogenous regressors other than the time and space-time-lagged dependent variable using system generalized method of moments (GMM). The paper also highlights interaction effects among explanatory variables for the first time in this context. Using a panel of 108 regions across the European Union over 1986-2010, the results for total, male and female participation rates throw a new light on the socio-economic relevance of different determinants. Importantly, characteristics in neighbouring regions play a significant role, and neglecting endogeneity is found to have serious consequences, underlining increased attention on the specification and estimation of spatial econometric models with endogenous regressors. MOTS CLÉS participation de la population active régions de l'Union européenne, panneaux spatiaux dynamiques, régresseurs endogènes RESUMEN Participación regional de la población activa en la Unión Europea: un enfoque de modelo recursivo tiempoespacio con regresores endógenos. Spatial Economic Analysis. Aunque existen abundantes publicaciones sobre el mercado laboral regional con una perspectiva espacial, solo en unos pocos estudios se ha intentado ampliar con efectos espaciales el análisis de la participación de la población activa. En este artículo revisamos esta cuestión importante proponiendo un enfoque de modelo recursivo tiempo-espacio que valora y se basa en la metodología de Fogli y Veldkamp de 2011, donde se observó que en los Estados Unidos los niveles de participación varían con valores previos en regiones cercanas. Corregimos importantes deficiencias en su estudio, entre ellas la estacionalidad y el control de regresores endógenos que no sean la variable que depende del tiempo y el espacio-tiempo retrasado mediante el método generalizado de momentos (GMM). También se destacan los efectos de interacción entre las variables explicativas por primera vez en este contexto. A partir de un panel de 108 regiones de toda la Unión Europea para el periodo entre 1986 y 2010, los resultados para el nivel de participación total, de mujeres y de hombres, aportan un enfoque nuevo sobre la relevancia socioeconómica de los diferentes determinantes. Pero lo más importante es que las características en las regiones vecinas desempeñan un importante papel y observamos que ignorar la endogeneidad tie...

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Women, War, and Wages: The Effect of Female Labor Supply on the Wage Structure at Midcentury

Cited by 497 publications

References 28 publications

The Baby Boom and World War II: A Macroeconomic Analysis

The Baby Boom and World War II: A Macroeconomic Analysis

Women, medieval commerce, and the education gender gap

Regional labour force participation across the European Union: a time–space recursive modelling approach with endogenous regressors

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