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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
http://hdl.handle.net/2451/26041
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| Title: | Nature or Nurture? Learning and Female Labor Force Dynamics |
| Authors: | Fogli, Alessandra
Veldkamp, Laura |
| Issue Date: | 1-May-2007 |
| Series/Report no.: | EC-07-12 |
| Abstract: | Much of the increase in female labor force participation in the post-war
period has come from the entry of married women with young children.
Accompanying this change has been a rise in cultural acceptance of
maternal employment. We argue that the concurrent S-shaped rise in
maternal participation and its cultural acceptance is well explained by
generations of women engaged in Bayesian learning about the e®ects
of maternal employment on children. Each generation updates their
parents' beliefs by observing the children of employed women. When few
women participate in the labor force, most observations are
uninformative and participation rises slowly. As information accumulates
and the e®ects of labor force participation become less uncertain,
more women participate, learning accelerates and labor force
participation rises faster. As beliefs converge to the truth,
participation °attens out. Survey data, wage data and participation
data support our mechanism and distinguish it from alternative explanations. |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/2451/26041 |
| Appears in Collections: | Economics Working Papers
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