7 The number of involuntary part-time workers in Israel’s labor force increased by over 700% during the years 1979–1999, while the number of full-time workers (and the size of the labor force) increased by less than 100% during this period. The paper aims at understanding this rise. Our analyses, using Labor Force Surveys for 1979, 1989 and 1999 as well as annual published labor force statistic...

Is there a causal connection between house prices and labor force participation of married women? The simple correlation between house prices and married women’s labor force participation across U.S. metro areas is positive. Plausible, informal arguments have been advanced to support causation in either direction: prices raising participation (negative income effects of higher house prices lead...

In this paper, I analyze how the rise to power of the Muslim Brotherhood, marked by increased parliamentary power in late 2006 due to unprecedented success in the 2005 elections, impacts female labor force participation in districts in which Muslim Brotherhood candidates won compared to those in which they did not win. I use a difference in differences estimation strategy, using both district a...

This paper quantitatively tests how much of the post-WWII evolution in employment and average wages by gender can be explained by a model where changing labor demand requirements are the driving forces. I argue that a big fraction of the original female employment and wage gaps in mid-century, and the subsequent shrinking of both gaps, are explained by labor reallocation from brawn-intensive to...

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) was amended in 1978 to prohibit mandatory retirement before age 70 in most occupations. The impact of this legislation on the probability of older persons remaining in the labor force is the primary concern of this article. Specifically, questions concerning which older workers are affected by mandatory-retirement provisions and the extent to whic...

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. These differences are mostly explained by large differences in female labor supply. 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 countri...