C A F É Written by: Gail Boushey and Joan Moser “The Sisters”
Boushey, 20 October 2005, p. 1 When Women Get Paid for Work: The Entry of Women to the Paid Labor...
27
When Women Get Paid for Work: The Entry of Women to the Paid Labor Market CEPR Basic Economics Seminar Heather Boushey October 20, 2005
-
Upload
caleb-corcoran -
Category
Documents
-
view
216 -
download
1
Transcript of Boushey, 20 October 2005, p. 1 When Women Get Paid for Work: The Entry of Women to the Paid Labor...
When Women Get Paid for Work:
The Entry of Women to the Paid Labor Market
CEPR Basic Economics SeminarHeather BousheyOctober 20, 2005
Today’s talk
• The past half-century has witnessed a significant and sustained rise of women’s labor force participation.
• In the 1960s, the majority of mothers worked at home, by the 1990s, the majority were in the paid labor market.– The labor force participation rate (LFPR) is the share of
the population either at work or searching for a job (unemployed).
• This is one of the most important, society-altering trends of our recent history, one which we, as a society, have not yet fully adjusted to.
• In the next seminar series, we will focus on the gender pay gap, including the “mommy pay gap”.
Were women “pushed” or “pulled”
into the labor market?• Is work a “choice” that women make for
their own benefit or is it necessary to sustain their and their family’s livelihood?
• The answer will significantly affect how we think about policy.
• Recent media about women “opting out” of employment highlights the lack of resolution to this question.
Figure 1. Labor supply of men and women, age 20 and over
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
1948
1951
1954
1957
1960
1963
1966
1969
1972
1975
1978
1981
1984
1987
1990
1993
1996
1999
2002
Man 20 & over Women 20 & over
Source: Current Population Survey, March Annual Demographic File.
Figure 2a. Labor supply of women by presence of children
35.0
40.0
45.0
50.0
55.0
60.0
65.0
70.0
75.0
80.0
85.0
Women with no children under 18 Women with children under 18Women with children 6 - 17 Women with children under 6
Source: Current Population Survey, March Annual Demographic File.
Caveat: Women have always worked
• By 20th century, paid work (valued work) mostly occurs outside the home.– Historically, wives were seen as the husband’s “yoke-mate”
(Coontz 2005, p. 110), participating fully in the family’s farm or trade.
– Initially, women still had intensive housework, but latter 20th century technological advances limit the needs for an industrious homemaker.
• Lower-income women, women of color, and immigrant women always had been more likely than middle-class white women to work outside the home.
• Work in the home is also work, even though it’s unpaid.
Caveats aside, why did women’s LFPR
increase?• Was it family economics pushing them
towards employment?• Was it the feminist movement that
opened the doors for women’s employment (empowerment)?
• Short answer: BOTH– In Seminar 3, John Schmitt showed two
figures that I want to review.
Women’s earnings critical to family income (push factors)
• Without the contribution of wives, families would have seen a decline in income (Figures 3 and 4, Table 1).
• As was, income was relatively flat from the early 1970s onwards, compared to the period from WWII until the early 1970s (Again, a figure from John’s presentation, Figure 5).
• Critical for economic mobility (next week’s topic) (Table 2).– Bradbury and Katz (2004) found that favorable family
income mobility outcomes are associated with greater wives’ labor market activity.
Figure 3. Real hourly wage growth, men, 1979-2004
80
90
100
110
120
130
140
150
1973 1983 1993 2003
19
79
=1
00
.
10th 50th 90th
Source: John Schmitt, 2005. “Labor markets and economic inequality in the United States since the end of the 1970s.”
Figure 4. Real hourly wage growth, women, 1979-2004
80
90
100
110
120
130
140
150
1973 1983 1993 2003
19
79
=1
00
.
10th 50th 90th
Source: John Schmitt, 2005. “Labor markets and economic inequality in the United States since the end of the 1970s.”
Table 1. Income growth, married-couple families with children
Bottom fifth
Second fifth
Middle fifth
Fourth fifth
Top fifth
1979-89 -1.8% 3.4% 8.4% 12.6% 20.4%
1989-2000 9.5 12.1 14.4 16.5 35.4
2000-02 -6.4 -3.2 -1.6 -1.3 -4.0
1979-2000 7.5 15.9 24.0 31.1 63.0
Percent change in income without wives earnings, 1979-2000 -13.9 -4.6 5.1 14.7 51.5
Contribution of wives, 1979-2000 21.4 20.5 19.0 16.4 11.5
Source: Mishel, Bernstein, and Allegretto, The State of Working America 2004-05, p. 104.
Figure 5. Real median family income, 1947-2003
0
20,000
40,000
60,000
80,000
1947 1957 1967 1977 1987 1997
$2
00
3
Source: John Schmitt, 2005. “Labor markets and economic inequality in the United States since the end of the 1970s.”
Table 2. Decomposing annual earnings growth, prime-age wives with children
Bottom fifth
Second fifth
Middle fifth
Fourth fifth
Top fifth
Growth in annual earnings 1979-2000
85.8% 86.6% 78.5% 71.4% 86.1%
Due to more annual hours 47.7 52.7 43.5 28.6 26.9
More wives working 16.7 25.2 19.2 11.9 12.4
More weeks per year 22.1 20.3 16.1 10.7 7.7
More hours per week 8.9 7.3 8.2 6.0 6.7
Due to higher wages 38.1 33.8 35.0 42.8 59.3
Source: Mishel, Bernstein, and Allegretto, The State of Working America 2004-05, p. 105.
In short, economics of the family requires a second earner
• In most families, a woman works because she has to, not necessarily because she wants to have a career.
• It is the case that not working carries long-term penalties in terms of wage gains, but working under those conditions is certainly not a “choice”.
• There are also cumulative effects, when women moving into paid employment is part of a broad transformation of social life.
Figure 6. The “two-income trap”
$20,866
$50,755$17,834
$17,045
$0$10,000
$20,000$30,000
$40,000$50,000
$60,000$70,000
$80,000
Single-income family early1970s
Dual-income family early2000s
Infl
atio
n-ad
just
ed
Fixed costs Discretionary income
Source: Warren and Tyagi, 2005. The Two-Income Trap, p. 51.
Answer to push or pull affects how to think about
“work/family” • Centuries-long movement of work out of
the home requires a new mode of care and household production.– Children, sick, the elderly need care.– Historically, provided while women worked at
home (farm, trade), alongside those needing care.
– More recently, greater commute times (suburban living) necessitates even longer hours of care.
Women in paid employment is causing broad transformations
• Workplace practices.• Family practices.• Social policy.
• This is not to say, however, than any of these changes necessarily have occurred.
Workplaces have still not adapted
• Most workers (over 60%) do have access to paid sick days when their children take ill.
• Long hours—and increasing hours of work, especially to get ahead in elite and semi-elite fields.
• Limited opportunities for part-time employment at parity with full-time in terms of pay scale, promotion opportunities, and benefits.
Family life showing some signs of adaptation
• Time use surveys reporting show that men are increasing parental/housework hours while women decreasing.– Still, women do about twice as much
housework as men.
• FMLA often used by men, but usually for own illness.
Social policy remains unfocused on family realities
• The U.S. has no national paid maternity or paternity leave.
• U.S. workers have no right to paid sick days.
• Child care inadequate and school districts still have less than full-day kindergarten.
So, are women opting out of employment by choice?
• Louis Story, Lisa Belkin, etc. argue that elite women are “choosing” to stay home rather than work.
• But:– Most families need mothers’ wages.– Most families do not have the luxury
of adaptive institutions.
Figure 2b. Labor supply of women by presence of children
54.8 54.954.0 54.1 53.8
72.9 73.172.2 71.7
70.7
79.0 79.778.6 78.4
77.5
65.3 64.964.1
62.9 62.2
54.3
72.1
78.5
64.4
50.0
55.0
60.0
65.0
70.0
75.0
80.0
85.0
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
Women with no children under 18 Women with children under 18Women with children 6 - 17 Women with children under 6
Source: Current Population Survey, March Annual Demographic File.
Lackluster labor market led to falling employment
• Women were especially hard hit during the recession of 2001.
• Prime-age women with children (ages 25 to 44) saw a 4.4 percentage point decline in their employment rate from 1999 to 2003.– However, a large drop (-3.2 percentage points)
also occurred for women without children. – Indicates that the drop in women’s EPOP is not
due to mothers “opting out” of employment, but is rather a widespread phenomenon among women, as well as men.
Figure 7. Changes in employment level, men
Figure 8. Changes in employment level, women
Work Cited:
Gender Bias in the Current Economic Recovery?: Declining Employment
Rates for Women in the 21st Century
by Heather Boushey, David Rosnick, and Dean Baker, August 2005
http://www.cepr.net/pages/publications/labor_markets_2005_08_29.pdf
When Women Get Paid for Work: The Entry of Women
to the Paid Labor Market
Heather [email protected]
Center for Economic and Policy Research
www.cepr.net
![The [re]settlement of women prisoners in Northern …...The [re]settlement of women prisoners in Northern Ireland: From rhetoric to reality Jacqueline Kerr 4 paid employment (MacInnes](https://static.fdocuments.net/doc/165x107/5f27788008f93269852b8e18/the-resettlement-of-women-prisoners-in-northern-the-resettlement-of-women.jpg)
