مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد تفاوت های جنسیتی در الگوهای تنظیم بازار کار (الزویر)

The labor supply in the United States has experienced a substantial change over recent decades. While with the change in the US labor force generally holds hours worked as a function of sex and marital status, it is particularly true for the female labor supply. Findings from Jones, Manuelli and McGrattan (2003) show that hours worked by married women increased by roughly 30% over the time period from 1950 to 2000, while supply by married men decreased slightly over the same period. Moreover, hours worked by single women and single men remained almost constant over this time period. These trends have important and persistent economic and social effects. The progress in understanding factors behind female and family labor supply does not only require analysis of the gender wage gap, changes in the fertility rate, decrease in marriage and increase in divorce rates, and changing social norms, it also requires understanding of the business cycle response of men and women to adjustments in the labor market. The latter has, to the best of our knowledge, been neglected in the labor economics literature so far. The objective of this study is to assess the question whether men and women behave differently within the labor market adjustment process over the business cycle and to close this gap in the literature. Adjustments along the extensive margin are adjustments in the number of workers, while adjustments along the intensive margin are adjustments in the number of hours worked. It is important to distinguish between these two margins, because knowledge of the quantitative importance of the extensive and intensive margins is needed for economic models and policy. The relative strength of a margin alters the effects of policy reforms concerning the effects of taxes, labor market adjustments, and other policy changes related to female and family labor supply decisions. It is documented that many countries established policy programs to increase the participation rate of women in the way of tax benefits, increased child-care, or extended paid maternity leave, which includes for husbands as, for example, shown in Ray, Gornick and Schmitt (2009) or discussed in the “International Review of Leave Policies and Related Research” of the Department of Business (2007)i . Along this line, it is important to separate the extensive–intensive margin for men and women, as income taxes from benefit reforms that may have larger disincentive effects when the intensive margin is more important, which would increase labor supply elasticity.