Journal Article

Nature or nurture? Learning and the geography of female labor force participation

Fogli, Alessandra, Veldkamp, Laura

2011

Overview

\"One of the most dramatic economic transformations of the past century has been the entry of women into the labor force. While many theories explain why this change took place, we investigate the process of transition itself. We argue that local information transmission generates changes in participation that are geographically heterogeneous, locally correlated, and smooth in the aggregate, just like those observed in our data. In our model, women learn about the effects of maternal employment on children by observing nearby employed women. When few women participate in the labor force, data are scarce and participation rises slowly. As information accumulates in some regions, the effects of maternal employment become less uncertain and more women in that region participate. Learning accelerates, labor force participation rises faster, and regional participation rates diverge. Eventually, information diffuses throughout the economy, beliefs converge to the truth, participation flattens out, and regions become more similar again. To investigate the empirical relevance of our theory, we use a new county-level data set to compare our calibrated model to the time series and geographic patterns of participation.\" (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku). Die Untersuchung enthält quantitative Daten. Forschungsmethode: empirisch-quantitativ; empirisch; Längsschnitt; historisch. Die Untersuchung bezieht sich auf den Zeitraum 1940 bis 2005.

• Publisher: Blackwell Publishing Ltd,Econometric Society,Wiley-Blackwell
• Subject: 1940-2000 / Aggregate data / Applications / Children / Economic change / economic geography / Economic models / Ehefrau / Employment / Endowments / Erwerbsbeteiligung / Exact sciences and technology / Female labor force participation / Female labour / Frau / Frauenerwerbstätigkeit / Genetics / Geography / Inference from stochastic processes; time series analysis / information diffusion / Information dissemination / Informationsfluss / Informationsverbreitung / Insurance, economics, finance / Labor force / Labor force participation / Labour demand / Labour economics / Labour force / Labour force utilization / Labour market participation / Labour market structure / Labour mobility / Labour supply / Learning / Learning rate / Lernen / Lernprozess / Markov processes / Mathematics / Modeling / Mothers / Mutter / Mütter / Nurture / Participation / Probability and statistics / Probability theory and stochastic processes / Regionale Disparität / Regionalentwicklung / Regionaler Arbeitsmarkt / Regionaler Faktor / Regions / Räumliche Interaktion / Sciences and techniques of general use / Social environment / Sozialgeschichte / Sozialpsychologie / Statistics / Studies / Theorie / Time series / Truth / USA / Wages / Weibliche Arbeitskräfte / Women / Workforce / Working mothers / Working women