IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp7581.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Labour Force Participation of Mature Age Men in Australia: The Role of Spousal Participation

Author

Listed:
  • Mavromaras, Kostas

    (University of Adelaide)

  • Zhu, Rong

    (Flinders University)

Abstract

In this paper we estimate the interdependence of labour force participation decisions made by Australian couples from 2001 to 2011. We focus on couples with a mature age husband, and estimate the interdependence of the participation decision of the couple. We find that the decision of a wife to work or not influences positively, and in a causal fashion, the decision of her husband to work or not. In our paper we use counterfactual analysis to estimate the impact of the increasing labour force participation of a wife on her husband's participation. We find that the increased labour force participation of married women observed between 2002 and 2011 has been responsible for about a 4 percentage points increase in the participation of their mature age husbands.

Suggested Citation

  • Mavromaras, Kostas & Zhu, Rong, 2013. "Labour Force Participation of Mature Age Men in Australia: The Role of Spousal Participation," IZA Discussion Papers 7581, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7581
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp7581.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Neumark, David & Postlewaite, Andrew, 1998. "Relative income concerns and the rise in married women's employment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 157-183, October.
    2. 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.
    3. Hielke Buddelmeyer & Wang‐Sheng Lee & Mark Wooden, 2010. "Low‐Paid Employment and Unemployment Dynamics in Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 86(272), pages 28-48, March.
    4. Coile Courtney, 2004. "Retirement Incentives and Couples' Retirement Decisions," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-30, July.
    5. Doreen Wing Han Au & Thomas F. Crossley & Martin Schellhorn, 2005. "The effect of health changes and long‐term health on the work activity of older Canadians," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(10), pages 999-1018, October.
    6. Tammy Schirle, 2008. "Why Have the Labor Force Participation Rates of Older Men Increased since the Mid-1990s?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(4), pages 549-594, October.
    7. Morrill, Melinda Sandler & Morrill, Thayer, 2013. "Intergenerational links in female labor force participation," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 38-47.
    8. Dwyer, Debra Sabatini & Mitchell, Olivia S., 1999. "Health problems as determinants of retirement: Are self-rated measures endogenous?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 173-193, April.
    9. Daniela Del Boca & Marilena Locatelli & Silvia Pasqua, 2000. "Employment Decisions of Married Women: Evidence and Explanations," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 14(1), pages 35-52, March.
    10. Gustman, Alan L & Steinmeier, Thomas L, 2000. "Retirement in Dual-Career Families: A Structural Model," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(3), pages 503-545, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Pérez, Carlos & Martín-Román, Ángel & Moral, Alfonso, 2020. "Two decades of the complementary leisure effect in Spain," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 15(C).
    2. Iskhakov, Fedor, 2008. "Dynamic Programming Model of Health and Retirement," Memorandum 03/2008, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    3. Lixin Cai & Guyonne Kalb, 2007. "Health status and labour force status of older working-age Australian men," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 10(4), pages 227-252.
    4. Queiroz, Bernardo L. & Souza, Laeticia R., 2017. "Retirement incentives and couple’s retirement decisions in Brazil," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 9(C), pages 1-13.
    5. Håkan Selin, 2017. "What happens to the husband’s retirement decision when the wife’s retirement incentives change?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 24(3), pages 432-458, June.
    6. Courtney C. Coile, 2018. "Working Longer in the United States: Trends and Explanations," NBER Chapters, in: Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World: Working Longer, pages 299-324, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Merkurieva, Irina, 2023. "Retirement coordination and leisure complementarity," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    8. Courtney C. Coile, 2015. "Economic Determinants Of Workers’ Retirement Decisions," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 830-853, September.
    9. Diana Warren, 2013. "Retirement Decisions of Couples: The Impact of Spousal Characteristics and Preferences on the Timing of Retirement," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2013n41, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    10. Vipul Bhatt, 2017. "Cohort Differences in Joint Retirement: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 38(4), pages 475-495, December.
    11. Courtney Coile, 2018. "Working Longer in the U.S.: Trends and Explanations," NBER Working Papers 24576, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Warren, Diana A., 2015. "Retirement decisions of couples in Australia: The impact of spousal characteristics and preferences," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 6(C), pages 149-162.
    13. Jennifer Roberts & Nigel Rice & Andrew M Jones, 2010. "Early Retirement Among Men in Britain and Germany: How Important is Health?," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 35(4), pages 644-667, October.
    14. Tammy Schirle, 2008. "Why Have the Labor Force Participation Rates of Older Men Increased since the Mid-1990s?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(4), pages 549-594, October.
    15. Jones, Andrew M. & Rice, Nigel & Roberts, Jennifer, 2010. "Sick of work or too sick to work? Evidence on self-reported health shocks and early retirement from the BHPS," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 866-880, July.
    16. J L Ford & K Park & S Sen, 2009. "All Work and No Play: Pecuniary Versus Non-Pecuniary Factors in the Labour Supply of the Elderly," Discussion Papers 09-08, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham.
    17. Chuang-yi Chiu & Jennjou Chen, 2013. "Determinants of Labor Force Participation of Older Married Men in Taiwan," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(4), pages 3088-3101.
    18. Maria Casanova-Rivas, 2008. "Dynamic Complementarities: A Computational and Empirical Analysis of Couples' Retirement Decisions," 2008 Meeting Papers 1073, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    19. Moghadam, Hamed Markazi & Puhani, Patrick A. & Tyrowicz, Joanna, 2024. "Pension reforms and couples’ labour supply decisions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    20. Lalive, Rafael & Parrotta, Pierpaolo, 2017. "How does pension eligibility affect labor supply in couples?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 177-188.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    male employment trends; labour force participation; spousal status; joint decision making; Australia;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp7581. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    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.