Female Labor Force Intermittency and Current Earnings: A Switching Regression Model with Unknown Sample Selection

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Abstract: Using the Health and Retirement Survey, this paper finds a 16 percent selectivity-corrected wage penalty among women who engage in intermittent labor market activity. This penalty is experienced at a low level of intermittent activity but appears not to play an important role in a woman's decision to undertake such activity. In addition, employer preferences appear to play a larger role than human capital atrophy in the determination of the wage penalty. Terms of use: Documents inJEL classification: J22, J31, C30

What's Up with the Decline in Female Labor Force Participation?

“…Certainly, highly educated women are more likely to marry highly educated men (Hotchkiss and Pitts 2005;Neal 2002;Herrnstein and Murray 1994) and would, therefore, likely feel more secure in leaving the labor market (with their husband's higher earning power and lower probability of unemployment). This suggests that interacting some of the regressors (e.g., education and marriage) may help take some of the explanatory power away from the intercept.…”

The Role of Labor Market Intermittency in Explaining Gender Wage Differentials

“…It is widely accepted that there is a penalty associated with intermittent labor force participation; workers who engage in intermittent activity earn lower wages than workers who do not (for example, see Hotchkiss and Pitts 2005, Baum 2002, Stratton 1995, and Jacobsen and Levin 1995. This penalty for intermittency is often offered as one source of the lower wages observed for women relative to men.…”

“…Sorenson (1993) found that women with intermittent participation earned 34 percent less than women with continuous participation, after controlling for selection into intermittency as well as the labor force. Hotchkiss and Pitts (2005) construct an index for intermittent behavior that combines the number of periods of intermittency over a woman's work life, the amount of the work life spent in spells of intermittency, and the amount of time since the last spell of intermittency. They find that women are penalized at low levels of intermittency and women categorized as intermittent experience a penalty of roughly 16 percent.…”

Evidence of Demand Factors in the Determination of the Labor Market Intermittency Penalty

“…There is also evidence that women are penalized at fairly low levels of intermittent behavior (Hotchkiss and Pitts 2005) and that once a woman re-enters the labor market, she regains much of her lost earnings position, but that a small penalty persists for a relatively long period of time (Mincer andOfek 1982 andJacobsen andLevin 1995).…”