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The Rise in Female Employment and the Role of Tax Incentives - An Empirical Analysis of the Swedish Individual Tax Reform of 1971

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  • Håkan Selin

Abstract

Sweden reached the 2007 OECD average level of female labor force participation already in 1974. Before, but not after, 1971 the average tax rate facing the housewife was a function of the income of her husband. By exploiting a rich register based data source I utilize the exogenous variation provided by the individual tax reform to analyze the evolution of female employment in Sweden in the beginning of the 1970’s. Simulations suggest that employment among married women would have been 10 percentage points lower in 1975 if the 1969 statutory income tax system still had been in place in 1975.

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  • Håkan Selin, 2009. "The Rise in Female Employment and the Role of Tax Incentives - An Empirical Analysis of the Swedish Individual Tax Reform of 1971," CESifo Working Paper Series 2629, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_2629
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    Cited by:

    1. Clément Carbonnier, 2014. "The influence of taxes on employment of married women, evidence from the French joint income tax system," Working Papers hal-03460526, HAL.
    2. Avdic, Daniel & Johansson, Per, 2013. "Gender Differences in Preferences for Health-Related Absences from Work," IZA Discussion Papers 7480, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Hochguertel, Stefan & Ohlsson, Henry, 2012. "Who is at the top? Wealth mobility over the life cycle," Working Paper Series 2012:1, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    4. Angelov, Nikolay & Johansson, Per & Lindahl, Erica, 2013. "Gender differences in sickness absence and the gender division of family responsibilities," Working Paper Series, Center for Labor Studies 2013:5, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    5. Stefan Hochguertel & Henry Ohlsson, 2011. "Wealth mobility and dynamics over entire individual working life cycles," BCL working papers 56, Central Bank of Luxembourg.
    6. Michael Funke & Marc Gronwald, 2009. "A Convex Hull Approach to Counterfactual Analysis of Trade Openness and Growth," Quantitative Macroeconomics Working Papers 20906, Hamburg University, Department of Economics.
    7. Jukka Pirttilä & Hakan Selin, 2011. "Tax Policy and Employment: How Does the Swedish System Fare?," CESifo Working Paper Series 3355, CESifo.
    8. Klara Kaliskova, 2013. "Family Taxation and the Female Labor Supply: Evidence from the Czech Republic," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp496, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    9. Kalíšková, Klára, 2014. "Labor supply consequences of family taxation: Evidence from the Czech Republic," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 234-244.
    10. Anders, Forslund & Fredriksson, Peter, 2009. "Income support systems, labour supply incentives and employment – some cross-country evidence," Working Paper Series, Center for Labor Studies 2010:3, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    11. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/7lfmtcll678th9ldbi6o2t0onk is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Angelov, Nikolay & Johansson, Per & Lindahl, Erica, 2013. "Is the persistent gender gap in income and wages due to unequal family responsibilities?," Working Paper Series 2013:3, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    13. Piotr Lewandowski & Iga Magda & Jan Baran & Olena Fedyuk & Attila Bartha, 2013. "Gender Dimensions of the Labour Markets over the Past Two Decades," IBS Working Papers 1/2013, Instytut Badan Strukturalnych.
    14. Forslund, Anders, 2009. "Labour supply incentives, income support systems and taxes in Sweden," Working Paper Series 2009:30, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    female labor supply; income tax reforms;

    JEL classification:

    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure

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