IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mcm/sedapp/198.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Older Couples' Labour Market Reactions to Family Disruptions

Author

Abstract

This paper analyses how spouses in older couples react to `shocks' or `surprises' in their partner's labour income using data from the British Household Panel Survey, 1991-2004. Wives' labour supply proves to be much more sensitive to shocks than husbands'. After a divorce or separation, wives reduce their labour supply while the effect on husbands' labour supply is positive or not statistically significant. If a wife becomes unemployed, it does not affect her husband's labour supply while wives whose husband becomes unemployed reduce their labour supply, too. A decline in husband's health causes the wife to reduce her working hours while husbands tend to increase their labour supply when facing a decline in wife's health. Partner's death does not have statistically significant labour supply effects. Negative income shocks due to other reasons (such as choice) tend to reduce partner's labour supply and vice versa, but only slightly.

Suggested Citation

  • David Haardt, 2007. "Older Couples' Labour Market Reactions to Family Disruptions," Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population Research Papers 198, McMaster University.
  • Handle: RePEc:mcm:sedapp:198
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/sedap/p/sedap198.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alan L. Gustman & Thomas L. Steinmeier, 2004. "Social security, pensions and retirement behaviour within the family," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(6), pages 723-737.
    2. Blau, David M, 1998. "Labor Force Dynamics of Older Married Couples," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(3), pages 595-629, July.
    3. Campbell, Nigel, 1999. "The decline of employment among older people in Britain," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 51401, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Haardt, David, 2006. "Transitions out of and back to employment among older men and women in the UK," ISER Working Paper Series 2006-20, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    5. Weiss, Yoram & Willis, Robert J, 1997. "Match Quality, New Information, and Marital Dissolution," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(1), pages 293-329, January.
    6. Haurin, Donald R, 1989. "Women's Labor Market Reactions to Family Disruptions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 71(1), pages 54-61, February.
    7. John Bound, 1991. "Self-Reported Versus Objective Measures of Health in Retirement Models," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 26(1), pages 106-138.
    8. Campbell, Nigel, 1999. "The decline of employment among older people in Britain," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 6501, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. Paul Bingley & Ian Walker, 2001. "Household Unemployment and the Labour Supply of Married Women," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 68(270), pages 157-186, May.
    10. Rene Boheim & John Ermisch, 2001. "Partnership Dissolution in the UK – the Role of Economic Circumstances," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 63(2), pages 197-208, May.
    11. Nigel Campbell, 1999. "The Decline of Employment Among Older People in Britain," CASE Papers 019, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    12. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hakola, Tuulia, 2002. "Alternative Approaches to Model Withdrawals from the Labour Market – A Literature Review," Working Paper Series 2003:4, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    2. Christina Beatty & Stephen Fothergill & Rob Macmillan, 2000. "A Theory of Employment, Unemployment and Sickness," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(7), pages 617-630, October.
    3. John Heywood & Uwe Jirjahn & Georgi Tsertsvardze, 2010. "Hiring older workers and employing older workers: German evidence," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 23(2), pages 595-615, March.
    4. Coile Courtney, 2004. "Retirement Incentives and Couples' Retirement Decisions," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-30, July.
    5. Haardt, David, 2006. "Transitions out of and back to employment among older men and women in the UK," ISER Working Paper Series 2006-20, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    6. David Black & Yi-Ping Tseng & Roger Wilkins, 2011. "Do changes in demographic characteristics explain declining male employment rates? Examination of the Australian case using a propensity score re-weighting decomposition approach," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(28), pages 4215-4226.
    7. Elena Bardasi & Stephen P. Jenkins, 2010. "The Gender Gap In Private Pensions," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(4), pages 343-363, October.
    8. Michael P. Kidd & Renuka Metcalfe & Peter J. Sloane, 2012. "The determinants of hiring older workers in Britain revisited: an analysis using WERS 2004," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(4), pages 527-536, February.
    9. Allen, J.P. & de Grip, A., 2007. "Skill Obsolescence, Lifelong Learning and Labor Market Participation," ROA Research Memorandum 006, Maastricht University, Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA).
    10. David Black & Yi-Ping Tseng & Roger Wilkins, 2009. "Examining the Role of Demographic Change in the Decline in Male Employment in Australia: A Propensity Score Re-weighting Decomposition Approach," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2009n24, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    11. Daniel, Kirsten & Heywood, John S., 2007. "The determinants of hiring older workers: UK evidence," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 35-51, January.
    12. Kerry Platman, 2004. "‘Portfolio Careers’ and the Search for Flexibility in Later Life," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 18(3), pages 573-599, September.
    13. Richard Blundell & Costas Meghir & Sarah Smith, 2002. "Pension Incentives and the Pattern of Early Retirement," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(478), pages 153-170, March.
    14. Blundell, R. & French, E. & Tetlow, G., 2016. "Retirement Incentives and Labor Supply," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 457-566, Elsevier.
    15. Ian Roberts, 2006. "Taking age out of the workplace: putting older workers back in?," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 20(1), pages 67-86, March.
    16. D Leslie & D Blackaby & P Murphy & N OLeary, 2009. "The Employment and Earnings of Britains Senior Citizens," Economic Issues Journal Articles, Economic Issues, vol. 14(2), pages 1-26, September.
    17. Colin Duncan, 2003. "Assessing Anti-ageism Routes to Older Worker Re-engagement," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 17(1), pages 101-120, March.
    18. Irene Hardill, 2003. "Growing Old in England: Economic and Social Issues," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 18(4), pages 337-346, November.
    19. Clive Collis & Anne Green & Tony Mallier, 2000. "Older Female Workers in Britain and its Regions," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 15(1), pages 45-58, May.
    20. Lalive, Rafael & Parrotta, Pierpaolo, 2017. "How does pension eligibility affect labor supply in couples?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 177-188.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    labour supply; income shocks; older couples; BHPS;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mcm:sedapp:198. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/demcmca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.