Is work a 'choice' that women make for their own benefit o

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When Women Get Paid for Work The Entry of
Women to the Paid Labor Market

• CEPR Basic Economics Seminar
• Heather BousheyOctober 20, 2005

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Todays talk

• The past half-century has witnessed a significant
  and sustained rise of womens labor force
  participation.
• In the 1960s, the majority of mothers worked at
  home, by the 1990s, the majority were in the paid
  labor market.
• The labor force participation rate (LFPR) is the
  share of the population either at work or
  searching for a job (unemployed).
• This is one of the most important,
  society-altering trends of our recent history,
  one which we, as a society, have not yet fully
  adjusted to.
• In the next seminar series, we will focus on the
  gender pay gap, including the mommy pay gap.

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Were women pushed or pulled into the labor
market?

• Is work a choice that women make for their own
  benefit or is it necessary to sustain their and
  their familys livelihood?
• The answer will significantly affect how we think
  about policy.
• Recent media about women opting out of
  employment highlights the lack of resolution to
  this question.

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Figure 1. Labor supply of men and women, age 20
and over
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Figure 2a. Labor supply of women by presence of
children
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Caveat Women have always worked

• By 20th century, paid work (valued work) mostly
  occurs outside the home.
• Historically, wives were seen as the husbands
  yoke-mate (Coontz 2005, p. 110), participating
  fully in the familys farm or trade.
• Initially, women still had intensive housework,
  but latter 20th century technological advances
  limit the needs for an industrious homemaker.
• Lower-income women, women of color, and immigrant
  women always had been more likely than
  middle-class white women to work outside the
  home.
• Work in the home is also work, even though its
  unpaid.

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Caveats aside, why did womens LFPR increase?

• Was it family economics pushing them towards
  employment?
• Was it the feminist movement that opened the
  doors for womens employment (empowerment)?
• Short answer BOTH
• In Seminar 3, John Schmitt showed two figures
  that I want to review.

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Womens earnings critical to family income (push
factors)

• Without the contribution of wives, families would
  have seen a decline in income (Figures 3 and 4,
  Table 1).
• As was, income was relatively flat from the early
  1970s onwards, compared to the period from WWII
  until the early 1970s (Again, a figure from
  Johns presentation, Figure 5).
• Critical for economic mobility (next weeks
  topic) (Table 2).
• Bradbury and Katz (2004) found that favorable
  family income mobility outcomes are associated
  with greater wives labor market activity.

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Figure 3. Real hourly wage growth, men, 1979-2004
Source John Schmitt, 2005. Labor markets and
economic inequality in the United States since
the end of the 1970s.
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Figure 4. Real hourly wage growth, women,
1979-2004
Source John Schmitt, 2005. Labor markets and
economic inequality in the United States since
the end of the 1970s.
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Table 1. Income growth, married-couple families
with children
Source Mishel, Bernstein, and Allegretto, The
State of Working America 2004-05, p. 104.
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Figure 5. Real median family income, 1947-2003
Source John Schmitt, 2005. Labor markets and
economic inequality in the United States since
the end of the 1970s.
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Table 2. Decomposing annual earnings growth,
prime-age wives with children
Source Mishel, Bernstein, and Allegretto, The
State of Working America 2004-05, p. 105.
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In short, economics of the family requires a
second earner

• In most families, a woman works because she has
  to, not necessarily because she wants to have a
  career.
• It is the case that not working carries long-term
  penalties in terms of wage gains, but working
  under those conditions is certainly not a
  choice.
• There are also cumulative effects, when women
  moving into paid employment is part of a broad
  transformation of social life.

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Figure 6. The two-income trap
Source Warren and Tyagi, 2005. The Two-Income
Trap, p. 51.
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Answer to push or pull affects how to think about
work/family

• Centuries-long movement of work out of the home
  requires a new mode of care and household
  production.
• Children, sick, the elderly need care.
• Historically, provided while women worked at home
  (farm, trade), alongside those needing care.
• More recently, greater commute times (suburban
  living) necessitates even longer hours of care.

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Women in paid employment is causing broad
transformations

• Workplace practices.
• Family practices.
• Social policy.
• This is not to say, however, than any of these
  changes necessarily have occurred.

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Workplaces have still not adapted

• Most workers (over 60) do have access to paid
  sick days when their children take ill.
• Long hoursand increasing hours of work,
  especially to get ahead in elite and semi-elite
  fields.
• Limited opportunities for part-time employment at
  parity with full-time in terms of pay scale,
  promotion opportunities, and benefits.

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Family life showing some signs of adaptation

• Time use surveys reporting show that men are
  increasing parental/housework hours while women
  decreasing.
• Still, women do about twice as much housework as
  men.
• FMLA often used by men, but usually for own
  illness.

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Social policy remains unfocused on family
realities

• The U.S. has no national paid maternity or
  paternity leave.
• U.S. workers have no right to paid sick days.
• Child care inadequate and school districts still
  have less than full-day kindergarten.

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So, are women opting out of employment by choice?

• Louis Story, Lisa Belkin, etc. argue that elite
  women are choosing to stay home rather than
  work.
• But
• Most families need mothers wages.
• Most families do not have the luxury of adaptive
  institutions.

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Figure 2b. Labor supply of women by presence of
children
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Lackluster labor market led to falling employment

• Women were especially hard hit during the
  recession of 2001.
• Prime-age women with children (ages 25 to 44) saw
  a 4.4 percentage point decline in their
  employment rate from 1999 to 2003.
• However, a large drop (-3.2 percentage points)
  also occurred for women without children.
• Indicates that the drop in womens EPOP is not
  due to mothers opting out of employment, but is
  rather a widespread phenomenon among women, as
  well as men.

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Figure 7. Changes in employment level, men
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Figure 8. Changes in employment level, women
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Work CitedGender Bias in the Current Economic
Recovery? Declining Employment Rates for Women
in the 21st Century

• by Heather Boushey, David Rosnick, and Dean
  Baker, August 2005
• http//www.cepr.net/pages/publications/
• labor_markets_2005_08_29.pdf

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When Women Get Paid for Work The Entry of Women
to the Paid Labor Market

• Heather Boushey
• Hboushey_at_cepr.net
• Center for Economic and Policy Research
• www.cepr.net