IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Login to save this paper or follow this series

The social multiplier and labour market participation of mothers

Author Info

Abstract

In France as in the US, the participation of a mother in the labour market is influenced by the sex of her oldest siblings. Same-sex mothers tend to have more children and to work significantly less than the other mothers. In contrast, the sex of the oldest siblings does not have any perceptible influence on neighbourhood choices. There is no correlation between the sex of the siblings of a mother and the sex of the siblings of the other mothers living in the same close neighbourhood. Given these facts, the distribution of the sex of the siblings of the other mothers provides us with a plausible instrumental variable to identify the influence of other mothers' participation on a mother's participation in the labour market. Reduced-form analysis reveals that a mother's participation in the labour market is significantly affected by the sex of the oldest siblings of the other mothers living in the same neighbourhood. IV estimates suggest a strong impact of close neighbours' participation in the labour market on individual participation. We compare this result to estimates produced using the distribution of children's quarters of birth to generate instruments. Mothers whose children were born at the end of the year cannot send their children to pre-elementary school as early as the other mothers and participate less in the labour market. Interestingly enough, estimates using the distribution of quarters of birth in the neighbourhood as instruments are as strong as estimates using the sex-mix instruments.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: ftp://mse.univ-paris1.fr/pub/mse/cahiers2006/V06044.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Paper provided by Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1) in its series Cahiers de la Maison des Sciences Economiques with number v06044.

as
in new window

Length: 33 pages
Date of creation: May 2006
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:mse:wpsorb:v06044
Contact details of provider: Postal: 106 - 112 boulevard de l'Hôpital, 75647 Paris cedex 13
Phone: 01 44 07 81 00
Fax: 01 44 07 81 09
Web page: http://mse.univ-paris1.fr/Email:


More information through EDIRC

Keywords: Female participation in the labour market; neighbourhood effects; social multiplier.;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as in new window
  1. Raquel Fernández & Alessandra Fogli & Claudia Olivetti, 2004. "Mothers and Sons: Preference Formation and Female Labor Force Dynamics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 119(4), pages 1249-1299, November.
  2. Brock, William A. & Durlauf, Steven N., 2001. "Interactions-based models," Handbook of Econometrics, in: J.J. Heckman & E.E. Leamer (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 54, pages 3297-3380 Elsevier.
  3. Goux, Dominique & Maurin, Eric, 2006. "Close Neighbours Matter: Neighbourhood Effects on Early Performance at School," CEPR Discussion Papers 5682, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  4. E. Glaeser & B. Sacerdote & Jose A. Scheinkman, 2003. "The Social Multiplier," Levine's Working Paper Archive 506439000000000130, David K. Levine.
  5. Anne C. Case & Lawrence F. Katz, 1991. "The Company You Keep: The Effects of Family and Neighborhood on Disadvantaged Youths," NBER Working Papers 3705, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  6. David Neumark & Andrew Postlewaite, 1995. "Relative Income Concerns and the Rise in Married Women's Employment," NBER Working Papers 5044, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  7. Alberto Alesina & Edward Glaeser & Bruce Sacerdote, 2005. "Work and Leisure in the U. S. and Europe: Why so Different?," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 2068, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
  8. Durlauf, Steven N., 2004. "Neighborhood effects," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 50, pages 2173-2242 Elsevier.
  9. Woittiez, Isolde & Kapteyn, Arie, 1998. "Social interactions and habit formation in a model of female labour supply," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 185-205, November.
  10. Grodner, Andrew & Kniesner, Thomas J., 2007. "Labor Supply with Social Interactions: Econometric Estimates and Their Tax Policy Implications," IZA Discussion Papers 3034, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  11. Joshua D. Angrist & William N. Evans, 1996. "Children and Their Parents' Labor Supply: Evidence from Exogenous Variation in Family Size," NBER Working Papers 5778, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  12. Yannis M. Ioannides, 1999. "Residential Neighborhood Effects," Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University 9912, Department of Economics, Tufts University.
  13. Cooper, Russell & John, Andrew, 1988. "Coordinating Coordination Failures in Keynesian Models," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 103(3), pages 441-63, August.
  14. Jeffrey R Kling & Jeffrey B Liebman & Lawrence F Katz, 2007. "Experimental Analysis of Neighborhood Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(1), pages 83-119, 01.
  15. Goux, Dominique & Maurin, Eric, 2005. "The effect of overcrowded housing on children's performance at school," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(5-6), pages 797-819, June.
  16. Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz, 2000. "The Power of the Pill: Oral Contraceptives and Women's Career and Marriage Decisions," NBER Working Papers 7527, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  17. Gary Solon & Marianne E. Page & Greg J. Duncan, 2000. "Correlations Between Neighboring Children In Their Subsequent Educational Attainment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(3), pages 383-392, August.
  18. Yannis Ioannides, 2001. "Interactive Property Valuations," Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University 0102, Department of Economics, Tufts University.
  19. repec:att:wimass:9127 is not listed on IDEAS
  20. Daniela del Boca & Marilena Locatelli & Silvia Pasqua, 2000. "Employment Decisions of Married Women: Evidence and Explanations," CHILD Working Papers wp08_00, CHILD - Centre for Household, Income, Labour and Demographic economics - ITALY.
  21. Katz, Lawrence & Goldin, Claudia, 2002. "The Power of the Pill: Oral Contraceptives and Women’s Career and Marriage Decisions," Scholarly Articles 2624453, Harvard University Department of Economics.
  22. Yannis M. Ioannides & Jeffrey E. Zabel, 2003. "Neighbourhood effects and housing demand," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(5), pages 563-584.
  23. George A. Akerlof, 1997. "Social Distance and Social Decisions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(5), pages 1005-1028, September.
  24. Philip Oreopoulos, 2008. "Neighbourhood Effects in Canada: A Critique," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 34(2), pages 237-258, June.
  25. Kenneth I. Wolpin & Mark R. Rosenzweig, 2000. "Natural "Natural Experiments" in Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(4), pages 827-874, December.
  26. Manski, Charles F, 1993. "Identification of Endogenous Social Effects: The Reflection Problem," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(3), pages 531-42, July.
  27. Jonah B. Gelbach, 2002. "Public Schooling for Young Children and Maternal Labor Supply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 307-322, March.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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

as in new window


Cited by:
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.

This item is featured on the following reading lists or Wikipedia pages:

  1. The Social Multiplier and Labor Market Participation of Mothers (AEJ:AE 2009) in ReplicationWiki

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mse:wpsorb:v06044. 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: (Lucie Label)

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 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.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.