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The Added Worker Effect and Intrahousehold Aspects of Unemployment

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Author Info
Pieter Serneels (Centre for the Study of African Economies)

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Abstract

The added worker effect states that unemployment of a household member leads to an increase in labour supply of another household member. This paper investigates whether there is such an effect in a developing country. We use a rich data set for urban Ethiopia. We first give a brief description of who is unemployed within the household and find that they are mostly related to the household head. Men are not more likely to be unemployed than women once we control for being family in law. The eldest remaining sons in the household are more likely to be unemployed, but this may be due to a selection bias. The oldest remaining unemployed have no higher job aspirations than their younger brothers, suggesting that if older brothers have more entitlements, waiting in unemployment for a good job is not one of them. We carry out two separate analyses to investigate the added worker effect. First we analyse the effect using actual labour supply and find no evidence for an added worker effect once we take unobserved individual effects into account. We then investigate whether there is an added worker effect using desired labour market participation and find that there is none. The combined evidence indicates that there is no added worker effect. This suggests that households have other ways to cope with unemployment and is consistent with results from previous analysis which shows that the use of savings (by selling assets) and consumption smoothing are important mechanisms to cope with unemployment.

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Paper provided by EconWPA in its series Development and Comp Systems with number 0409014.

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Length: 40 pages
Date of creation: 15 Sep 2004
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Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpdc:0409014

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Related research
Keywords: household behaviour; labour supply; unemployment; added worker effect;

Find related papers by JEL classification:
D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

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References listed on IDEAS
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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Pieter Serneels, 2004. "The Nature of Unemployment in Urban Ethiopia," Development and Comp Systems 0409042, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
  2. Hazel Jean Malapit & Jade Eric Redoblado & Deanna Margarett Cabungcal-Dolor & Jasmin Suministrado, 2006. "Labor Supply Responses to Adverse Shocks under Credit Constraints: Evidence from Bukidnon, Philippines," Cahiers de recherche PMMA 2006-15, PEP-PMMA. [Downloadable!]
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