Labor Supply of Egyptian Married Women When Self-Employment is an Option: Participation and Hours of Work

47 Pages Posted: 1 May 2011

See all articles by Fatma El Hamidi

Fatma El Hamidi

University of Pittsburgh - Department of Economics & GSPIA; ERF

Date Written: January 22, 2003

Abstract

This paper estimates the responsiveness of labor supply function of urban married women on both the intensive margin (hours of work) and the extensive margin (participation) to unearned income and market wages, when self-employment is an option. Data used from household surveys carried out in 1988 and 1998. While early work on female participation rarely considered self-employed an autonomous option, data on female participation in developing countries reveal a significant portion of female labor force working for their own account. An extended version of Roy's model, developed by Tunali and Baslevent (2000), is applied in this analysis. The model allows for three options: non-employment, self-employment, and wage work. Heckman-Lee two-step econometric model is used in this analysis, correcting for two types of self-selection: selection into the self-employment rather than not participating, and selection into wage work rather than self-employment. The results indicate a zero wage elasticity of labor supply and also zero income elasticity.

Keywords: Labor Supply, Women, Egypt, Hours of Work, Self-employment

JEL Classification: J22, J23, J16, J31, O55, R23

Suggested Citation

El Hamidi, Fatma, Labor Supply of Egyptian Married Women When Self-Employment is an Option: Participation and Hours of Work (January 22, 2003). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1819384 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1819384

Fatma El Hamidi (Contact Author)

University of Pittsburgh - Department of Economics & GSPIA ( email )

Pittsburgh, PA 15260-0001
United States

ERF ( email )

21 Al-Sad Al-Aaly St.
(P.O. Box: 12311)
Dokki, Cairo
Egypt

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