Female Labour Supply and intergenerational preference formation: Evidence for Mexico

Campos-Vazquez, Raymundo M. and Velez, Roberto (2013): Female Labour Supply and intergenerational preference formation: Evidence for Mexico.

Abstract

Using a national representative sample for Mexico, we analyse the effect of a husband having a working mother on the probability that he has a working wife. Our results show that labour force participation by a husband’s mother increases the probability of the labour force participation of his wife by 15 percentage points. The effect is mainly driven by males with less than a high school education. One possible confounding factor is the effect of labour force participation of the wife’s mother on the wife’s labour participation decision. However, in a different sample, we do not find any effect of work force participation of wives’ mothers on wives’ decisions to join the labour force. Finally, we test the effect of the work force participation of a husband’s mother on the husband’s preferences regarding child-rearing practices. We find that having a working mother strongly reduces the probability that daughters will be tasked to care for siblings and fosters preferences for a more egalitarian allocation of educational resources among children. Hence, promoting female labour force participation can have important dynamic implications, especially for developing countries.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Female Labour Supply; Family; Preferences; Social Norms; Role Models
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D1 - Household Behavior and Family Economics > D10 - General; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J12 - Marriage ; Marital Dissolution ; Family Structure ; Domestic Abuse; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J16 - Economics of Gender ; Non-labor Discrimination; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor > J22 - Time Allocation and Labor Supply; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O5 - Economywide Country Studies > O54 - Latin America ; Caribbean

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