IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/reveho/v15y2017i3d10.1007_s11150-016-9354-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A tale of two decades: Relative intra-family earning capacity and changes in family welfare over time

Author

Listed:
  • Julie L. Hotchkiss

    (Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and Georgia State University)

  • Robert E. Moore

    (Georgia State University)

  • Fernando Rios-Avila

    (Levy Institute of Bard College)

  • Melissa R. Trussell

    (School of Business and Public Management, College of Coastal Georgia)

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of economic changes in the 1990s and 2000s on the welfare of married households, taking into account the relative earnings structure of husband and wife. Modeling the household members’ joint labor supply, we find that families in which the wife is the higher wage earner experienced as much welfare gain in the 1990s and significantly higher welfare gains in the 2000s as families in which the husband is the higher wage earner.

Suggested Citation

  • Julie L. Hotchkiss & Robert E. Moore & Fernando Rios-Avila & Melissa R. Trussell, 2017. "A tale of two decades: Relative intra-family earning capacity and changes in family welfare over time," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 707-737, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:reveho:v:15:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1007_s11150-016-9354-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s11150-016-9354-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11150-016-9354-9
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11150-016-9354-9?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 search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. DiNardo, John & Fortin, Nicole M & Lemieux, Thomas, 1996. "Labor Market Institutions and the Distribution of Wages, 1973-1992: A Semiparametric Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1001-1044, September.
    2. Marjorie B. McElroy, 1990. "The Empirical Content of Nash-Bargained Household Behavior," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 25(4), pages 559-583.
    3. Francine D. Blau & Lawrence M. Kahn, 2007. "Changes in the Labor Supply Behavior of Married Women: 1980–2000," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(3), pages 393-438.
    4. Howard J. Wall, 2009. "The \\"man-cession\\" of 2008-2009: it's big, but it's not great," The Regional Economist, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Oct, pages 4-9.
    5. Julie L. Hotchkiss & Robert E. Moore & Fernando Rios-Avila, 2014. "Assessing the Welfare Impact of Tax Reform: A Case Study of the 2001 U.S. Tax Cut," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(2), pages 404-404, June.
    6. Cogan, John F, 1981. "Fixed Costs and Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(4), pages 945-963, June.
    7. John Pencavel, 2002. "A Cohort Analysis of the Association between Work Hours and Wages among Men," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 37(2), pages 251-274.
    8. Olivier Bargain & Nicolas Moreau, 2002. "Is the collective model of labor supply useful for tax policy analysis ? A simulation exercise," DELTA Working Papers 2002-21, DELTA (Ecole normale supérieure).
    9. Daniel Feenberg & Elisabeth Coutts, 1993. "An introduction to the TAXSIM model," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(1), pages 189-194.
    10. Apps,Patricia & Rees,Ray, 2009. "Public Economics and the Household," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521887878.
    11. Richard Blundell & Pierre-Andre Chiappori & Thierry Magnac & Costas Meghir, 2007. "Collective Labour Supply: Heterogeneity and Non-Participation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(2), pages 417-445.
    12. van Soest, Arthur & Das, Marcel & Gong, Xiaodong, 2002. "A structural labour supply model with flexible preferences," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 107(1-2), pages 345-374, March.
    13. Hoynes, Hilary Williamson, 1996. "Welfare Transfers in Two-Parent Families: Labor Supply and Welfare Participation under AFDC-UP," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(2), pages 295-332, March.
    14. Ransom, Michael R, 1987. "An Empirical Model of Discrete and Continuous Choice in Family Labor Supply," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(3), pages 465-472, August.
    15. Bradley T. Heim, 2009. "Structural Estimation of Family Labor Supply with Taxes: Estimating a Continuous Hours Model Using a Direct Utility Specification," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(2).
    16. Hans Bloemen & Elena Stancanelli, 2015. "Toyboys or supergirls? An analysis of partners’ employment outcomes when she outearns him," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 501-530, September.
    17. Marianne Bertrand & Emir Kamenica & Jessica Pan, 2015. "Gender Identity and Relative Income within Households," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(2), pages 571-614.
    18. Michael P. Keane, 2011. "Labor Supply and Taxes: A Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(4), pages 961-1075, December.
    19. Heckman, James J, 1974. "Shadow Prices, Market Wages, and Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 42(4), pages 679-694, July.
    20. David Lam, 1988. "Marriage Markets and Assortative Mating with Household Public Goods: Theoretical Results and Empirical Implications," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 23(4), pages 462-487.
    21. Anne Winkler, 1997. "Economic decision-making by cohabitors: findings regarding income pooling," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(8), pages 1079-1090.
    22. Robert K. Triest, 1990. "The Effect of Income Taxation on Labor Supply in the United States," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 25(3), pages 491-516.
    23. Amemiya, Takeshi, 1974. "Multivariate Regression and Simultaneous Equation Models when the Dependent Variables Are Truncated Normal," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 42(6), pages 999-1012, November.
    24. Julie L. Hotchkiss & Robert E. Moore & Fernando Rios-Avila, 2014. "Family Welfare and the Great Recession," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2014-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    25. Stephen Shore, 2015. "The co-movement of couples’ incomes," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 569-588, September.
    26. Grossbard-Shechtman, Shoshana Amyra, 1984. "A Theory of Allocation of Time in Markets for Labour and Marriage," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 94(376), pages 863-882, December.
    27. Eissa, Nada & Kleven, Henrik Jacobsen & Kreiner, Claus Thustrup, 2008. "Evaluation of four tax reforms in the United States: Labor supply and welfare effects for single mothers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3-4), pages 795-816, April.
    28. Blundell, Richard & Meghir, Costas & Symons, Elizabeth & Walker, Ian, 1988. "Labour supply specification and the evaluation of tax reforms," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 23-52, June.
    29. Hausman, Jerry & Ruud, Paul, 1984. "Family Labor Supply with Taxes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(2), pages 242-248, May.
    30. Fernando Rios-Avila & Julie L. Hotchkiss, 2014. "A Decade of Flat Wages?," Economics Policy Note Archive 14-4, Levy Economics Institute.
    31. Anne Winkler & Timothy McBride & Courtney Andrews, 2005. "Wives who outearn their husbands: A transitory or persistent phenomenon for couples?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 42(3), pages 523-535, August.
    32. Julie Hotchkiss & Robert Moore, 2002. "Changes in the welfare of two-earner families across the income distribution, 1983-1993," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(7), pages 429-431.
    33. Robert E. Moore & Mary Mathewes Kassis & Julie L. Hotchkiss, 1997. "Running hard and falling behind: A welfare analysis of two-earner families," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 10(3), pages 237-250.
    34. Julie L. Hotchkiss & Fernando Rios-Avila, 2013. "Identifying Factors behind the Decline in the U.S. Labor Force Participation Rate," Business and Economic Research, Macrothink Institute, vol. 3(1), pages 257-275, June.
    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. Julie L. Hotchkiss & Robert E. Moore & Fernando Rios-Avila, 2017. "Family Welfare and the Cost of Unemployment," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2017-7, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

    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. Julie L. Hotchkiss & Robert E. Moore & Fernando Rios-Avila & Melissa R. Trussell, 2014. "Changes in family welfare from 1994 to 2012: a tale of two decades," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2014-26, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    2. Julie L. Hotchkiss & Robert E. Moore & Fernando Rios-Avila, 2017. "Family Welfare and the Cost of Unemployment," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2017-7, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    3. Hotchkiss, Julie L. & Moore, Robert E. & Rios-Avila, Fernando, 2020. "Cost of policy choices: A microsimulation analysis of the impact on family welfare of unemployment and price changes," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    4. Julie L. Hotchkiss & Robert E. Moore & Fernando Rios-Avila, 2014. "Assessing the Welfare Impact of Tax Reform: A Case Study of the 2001 U.S. Tax Cut," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(2), pages 404-404, June.
    5. Julie L. Hotchkiss & Robert E. Moore & Fernando Rios-Avila, 2021. "Impact of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act on Labor Supply and Welfare of Married Households," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2021-18, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    6. Julie L. Hotchkiss & Robert E. Moore & Fernando Rios-Avila, 2014. "Family Welfare and the Great Recession," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2014-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    7. Olivier Bargain & Kristian Orsini & Andreas Peichl, 2014. "Comparing Labor Supply Elasticities in Europe and the United States: New Results," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 49(3), pages 723-838.
    8. Olivier Bargain & Kristian Orsini & Andreas Peichl, 2014. "Comparing Labor Supply Elasticities in Europe and the United States: New Results," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 49(3), pages 723-838.
    9. Gan, Li & Ju, Gaosheng & Zhu, Xi, 2015. "Nonparametric estimation of structural labor supply and exact welfare change under nonconvex piecewise-linear budget sets," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 188(2), pages 526-544.
    10. Blundell, Richard & Macurdy, Thomas, 1999. "Labor supply: A review of alternative approaches," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 27, pages 1559-1695, Elsevier.
    11. Olivier Bargain & Andreas Peichl, 2016. "Own-wage labor supply elasticities: variation across time and estimation methods," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 5(1), pages 1-31, December.
    12. Matteo Picchio & Giacomo Valletta, 2018. "A welfare evaluation of the 1986 tax reform for married couples in the United States," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 25(3), pages 757-807, June.
    13. Anil Kumar, 2016. "Lifecycle-consistent female labor supply with nonlinear taxes: evidence from unobserved effects panel data models with censoring, selection and endogeneity," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 207-229, March.
    14. Liang, Che-Yuan, 2018. "Taxes and Household Labor Supply: Estimating Distributional Effects of Nonlinear Prices on Multidimensional Choice," Working Paper Series 2018:2, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    15. Kiho Muroga, 2020. "Work or housework? Mincer’s hypothesis and the labor supply elasticity of married women in Japan," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 71(2), pages 303-347, April.
    16. Michiel Evers & Ruud A. De Mooij & Daniel J. Van Vuuren, 2005. "What Explains the Variation in Estimates of Labour Supply Elasticities?," CESifo Working Paper Series 1633, CESifo.
    17. John K. Dagsvik & Zhiyang Jia & Tom Kornstad & Thor O. Thoresen, 2014. "Theoretical And Practical Arguments For Modeling Labor Supply As A Choice Among Latent Jobs," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 134-151, February.
    18. Ganghua Mei & Lei Yue, 2022. "Labor supply and time use: evidence from cohabiting women in the United States," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(44), pages 5133-5158, September.
    19. Rolf Aaberge & Ugo Colombino, 2014. "Labour Supply Models," Contributions to Economic Analysis, in: Handbook of Microsimulation Modelling, volume 127, pages 167-221, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    20. Olivier Bargain & Andreas Peichl, 2013. "Steady-State Labor Supply Elasticities: An International Comparison," AMSE Working Papers 1322, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Family welfare; Microsimulation; Joint labor supply; Collective family utility;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I30 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • D19 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Other

    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:15:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1007_s11150-016-9354-9. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.