Family Structure and Female Labour Supply in Mexico City

46 Pages Posted: 4 Dec 2000

See all articles by Xiaodong Gong

Xiaodong Gong

Australian National University (ANU) - School of Economics; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Arthur van Soest

Tilburg University; Netspar; RAND Corporation; Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Date Written: November 2000

Abstract

This paper investigates labour supply of married women in Mexico City. A static neoclassical structural mode is used. We assume that each woman chooses her labour supply and corresponding income so that her utility is maximized, conditional upon her husband's labour supply and earnings. We use a direct translog specification, and include family composition variables as taste shifters. Also taken into account are fixed costs of working, random preferences, and correlation between error terms in wage equations and random preference terms.

The wage equation and the labour supply model are estimated jointly by smooth simulated maximum likelihood. We find income elasticities of labour supply of about -0.17, and wage elasticities of about 0.87. The latter is substantially underestimated if the correlation between wage equation errors and random preference terms is not taken into account. We find evidence that the presence of other adult females reduces the negative impact of young children on the mothers' labour supply.

JEL Classification: C31, C35, J16, J22, O54

Suggested Citation

Gong, Xiaodong and van Soest, Arthur H. O. and van Soest, Arthur H. O., Family Structure and Female Labour Supply in Mexico City (November 2000). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=252022 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.252022

Xiaodong Gong (Contact Author)

Australian National University (ANU) - School of Economics ( email )

Coombs Building 9
Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 0200
Australia
61 2 6125 4235 (Phone)
61 2 6125 0182 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://econrsss.anu.edu.au/Staff/gong/contact_xg.htm

IZA Institute of Labor Economics ( email )

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany
049 228/ 3894 527 (Phone)
049 228/ 3894 510 (Fax)

Arthur H. O. van Soest

Netspar

P.O. Box 90153
Tilburg, 5000 LE
Netherlands

Tilburg University ( email )

P.O. Box 90153
Tilburg, DC Noord-Brabant 5000 LE
Netherlands

RAND Corporation ( email )

P.O. Box 2138
1776 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138
United States

Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
207
Abstract Views
2,472
Rank
266,316
PlumX Metrics