IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/labeco/v96y2025ics0927537125000569.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Who picks up the slack? Understanding spousal responses to unemployment spells

Author

Listed:
  • Kawano, Laura
  • LaLumia, Sara
  • Ramnath, Shanthi
  • Stevens, Michael

Abstract

We use a large panel of married households to update estimated added worker effects. In response to a primary earner’s job loss, secondary earners are 1.1 to 2.4 percentage points more likely to work and compensate for 3.6 to 5.1 percent of the displaced worker’s lost earnings. When a secondary earner is displaced, spousal employment is unchanged but there is a substantial earnings reduction. These small compensatory responses are explained by an increased probability that the nondisplaced spouse exits employment, either through correlated unemployment shocks or retirement. Conditional on relative-earner status, sex-based differences in added worker effects are small.

Suggested Citation

  • Kawano, Laura & LaLumia, Sara & Ramnath, Shanthi & Stevens, Michael, 2025. "Who picks up the slack? Understanding spousal responses to unemployment spells," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:96:y:2025:i:c:s0927537125000569
    DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102732
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927537125000569
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102732?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    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:eee:labeco:v:96:y:2025:i:c:s0927537125000569. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/labeco .

    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.