Studying the impact of fertility on female labor force participation and the form that this participation takes is complicated by the fact that both fertility and participation are potentially endogenous household decisions, requiring simultaneous estimation. Such estimation is further complicated by the need to find appropriate instruments for fertility. Moreover, age at marriage (or the proba...

The Roy model discussed here can be applied to situations where we have individuals selecting into one of two or more sectors. Examples would include, the education level choice (High School vs College) and labor participation choice (join the work force or not, especially for in the context of female labor supply). We shall examine the labor participation choice and applications of the Roy mod...

Many countries around the world are experiencing a significant shift in demographic patterns towards an older population. The age composition of the labor force has also changed dramatically, often accompanied by sharp reductions in the labor force participation rates of older workers. These phenomena in concert pose numerous challenges for the design of public pension programs and labor market...

I document differences in labor supply between a set of Latin American countries and the U.S. in the period 1990-2005. In the U.S. the female labor force participation was 69% by 1990, while in Brazil and Mexico was 39% and 37%, respectively. Females began to participate more in the labor market of these countries when more households acquired access to basic infrastructure and when distortive ...

We develop a simple model of labor market participation, human capital degradation, and re-training. We focus on how non-participation, as a distinct state from unemployment and employment, is determined by the welfare system in interaction with labor market conditions and personal characteristics. We provide a tractable framework to analyze how the decisions to exit the labor force and to miti...

The labor supply incentives provided by the early retirement rules of the United States Social Security Old Age benefits program are of growing importance as the Normal Retirement Age (NRA) increases to 67, and the labor force participation of Older Americans starts to increase. These incentives allow individuals who claim benefits before the NRA but continue to work, or return to the labor for...