IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/reveho/v12y2014i2p209-235.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gender, added-worker effects, and the 2007–2009 recession: Looking within the household

Author

Listed:
  • Martha Starr

    ()

Abstract

The U.S. recession of 2007–2009 saw unemployment rates for men rise by significantly more than those for women, resulting in the downturn’s characterization as a ‘mancession’. This paper uses data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey to reexamine gender-related dimensions of the 2007–2009 recession. Unlike most previous work, we analyze data that connects men’s and women’s employment status to that of their spouses. A difference-in-difference framework is used to characterize how labor-market outcomes for one spouse varied according to outcomes for the other. Results show that that employment rates of women whose husbands were non-employed rose significantly in the recession, while those for people in other situations held steady or fell—consistent with the view that women took on additional bread-winning responsibilities to make up for lost income. However, probabilities of non-participation did not rise by more for men with working wives than they did for other men, casting doubt on ideas that men in this situation made weaker efforts to return to work because they could count on their wives’ paychecks to support the household. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Martha Starr, 2014. "Gender, added-worker effects, and the 2007–2009 recession: Looking within the household," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 209-235, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:reveho:v:12:y:2014:i:2:p:209-235
    DOI: 10.1007/s11150-013-9181-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11150-013-9181-1
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert Breunig & Indraneel Dasgupta, 2005. "Do Intra-Household Effects Generate the Food Stamp Cash-Out Puzzle?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 87(3), pages 552-568.
    2. Jakob Roland Munch & Michael Rosholm & Michael Svarer, 2006. "Are Homeowners Really More Unemployed?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(514), pages 991-1013, October.
    3. Jennifer Ward-Batts, 2008. "Out of the Wallet and into the Purse: Using Micro Data to Test Income Pooling," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(2), pages 325-351.
    4. Dietz, Robert D. & Haurin, Donald R., 2003. "The social and private micro-level consequences of homeownership," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 401-450, November.
    5. Martin Browning & Thomas F. Crossley, 2001. "The Life-Cycle Model of Consumption and Saving," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 3-22, Summer.
    6. Melvin Stephens, 2002. "Worker Displacement and the Added Worker Effect," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(3), pages 504-537, July.
    7. Laurens Cherchye & Bram De Rock & Frederic Vermeulen, 2012. "Married with Children: A Collective Labor Supply Model with Detailed Time Use and Intrahousehold Expenditure Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(7), pages 3377-3405, December.
    8. Gilbert Ghez & Gary S. Becker, 1975. "The Allocation of Time and Goods over the Life Cycle," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number ghez75-1, June.
    9. Marianne P. Bitler & Hilary W. Hoynes, 2010. "The State of Social Safety Net in the Post-Welfare Reform Era," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 41(2 (Fall)), pages 71-147.
    10. Gilbert Ghez & Gary S. Becker, 1975. "A Theory of the Allocation of Time and Goods Over the Life Cycle," NBER Chapters,in: The Allocation of Time and Goods over the Life Cycle, pages 1-45 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Rives, Janet M. & Sosin, Kim, 2002. "Occupations and the cyclical behavior of gender unemployment rates," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 287-299.
    12. Marianne Bitler & Hilary W. Hoynes, 2010. "The State of the Safety Net in the Post-Welfare Reform Era," NBER Working Papers 16504, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Elizabeth Katz, 1997. "The Intra-Household Economics of Voice and Exit," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(3), pages 25-46.
    14. Gustavo J. Bobonis, 2009. "Is the Allocation of Resources within the Household Efficient? New Evidence from a Randomized Experiment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(3), pages 453-503, June.
    15. Richard Blundell & Luigi Pistaferri & Itay Saporta-Eksten, 2016. "Consumption Inequality and Family Labor Supply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(2), pages 387-435, February.
    16. Miki Kohara, 2010. "The response of Japanese wives’ labor supply to husbands’ job loss," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 23(4), pages 1133-1149, September.
    17. Oreffice, Sonia, 2011. "Sexual orientation and household decision making.: Same-sex couples' balance of power and labor supply choices," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 145-158, April.
    18. Ernest P. Goss & Joseph M. Phillips, 1997. "The Impact of Home Ownership on the Duration of Unemployment," The Review of Regional Studies, Southern Regional Science Association, vol. 27(1), pages 9-27, Summer.
    19. Esther Duflo & Christopher Udry, 2003. "Intrahousehold Resource Allocation in Côte D'ivoire: Social Norms, Separate Accounts and Consumption Choices," Working Papers 857, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    20. Congregado, Emilio & Golpe, Antonio A. & van Stel, André, 2011. "Exploring the big jump in the Spanish unemployment rate: Evidence on an 'added-worker' effect," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 1099-1105, May.
    21. Caren Grown & Emcet Tas, 2010. "Gender Equality in the US Labor Markets in the "Great Recession" of 2007-2010," Working Papers 2010-15, American University, Department of Economics.
    22. Richard Blundell & Pierre-André Chiappori & Costas Meghir, 2005. "Collective Labor Supply with Children," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(6), pages 1277-1306, December.
    23. Spletzer, James R, 1997. "Reexamining the Added Worker Effect," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 35(2), pages 417-427, April.
    24. Lundberg, Shelly, 1985. "The Added Worker Effect," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(1), pages 11-37, January.
    25. M. Colom & M. Molés, 2013. "Housing and labor decisions of households," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 55-82, March.
    26. David N. F. Bell & David G. Blanchflower, 2011. "Young people and the Great Recession," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 27(2), pages 241-267.
    27. Hellerstein Judith K & Morrill Melinda Sandler, 2011. "Booms, Busts, and Divorce," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-28, August.
    28. Tullio Jappelli, 1990. "Who is Credit Constrained in the U. S. Economy?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 105(1), pages 219-234.
    29. Cullen, Julie Berry & Gruber, Jonathan, 2000. "Does Unemployment Insurance Crowd Out Spousal Labor Supply?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(3), pages 546-572, July.
    30. James J. Heckman & Thomas E. Macurdy, 1980. "A Life Cycle Model of Female Labour Supply," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 47(1), pages 47-74.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tamar Khitarishvili, 2018. "Gender Pay Gaps in the Former Soviet Union: A Review of the Evidence," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_899, Levy Economics Institute.
    2. Christian Dudel & Mikko Myrskylä, 2016. "Recent trends in US working life expectancy at age 50 by gender, education, and race/ethnicity and the impact of the Great Recession," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2016-006, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    3. Giannakopoulos, Nicholas, 2015. "The added worker effect of married women in Greece during the Great Depression," MPRA Paper 66298, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Bredtmann, Julia & Otten, Sebastian & Rulff, Christian, 2014. "Husband's Unemployment and Wife's Labor Supply – The Added Worker Effect across Europe," Ruhr Economic Papers 484, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    5. Chiara Comolli & Fabrizio Bernardi, 2015. "The causal effect of the great recession on childlessness of white American women," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-24, December.
    6. Marina Gorsuch, 2016. "Decomposing the increase in men’s time on childcare during the great recession," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 53-82, March.
    7. repec:spr:demogr:v:54:y:2017:i:6:d:10.1007_s13524-017-0619-6 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Aleksandra Riedl & Florian Schoiswohl, 2015. "Is there an added worker effect? – European labor supply during the crisis," Focus on European Economic Integration, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank), issue 4, pages 71-88.
    9. Mary Eschelbach Hansen & Julie Routzahn, 2014. "Gender Differences in Attitudes Toward Debt and Financial Position: The Impact of the Great Recession," Working Papers 2014-10, American University, Department of Economics.
    10. repec:kap:reveho:v:15:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1007_s11150-017-9368-y is not listed on IDEAS

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Recession; Gender; American Community Survey; Added-worker effect; D13; E32; J22; J12;

    JEL classification:

    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure

    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:kap:reveho:v:12:y:2014:i:2:p:209-235. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Sonal Shukla) or (Rebekah McClure). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.