We used the first wave of the Health and Retirement Survey to study the effect of health on the labor force activity of black and white men and women in their 50s. The evidence we present confirms the notion that health is an extremely important determinant of early labor force exit. Our estimates suggest that health differences between blacks and whites can account for most of the racial gap i...

This paper examines the role of the shift in pension plans — from Defined Benefit to Defined Contribution — in explaining the recent increase in labor supply of older workers. A structural model of consumption, savings, Social Security, and pension plan heterogeneity is estimated using data from the Health and Retirement Study. Model simulations indicate that changes in pension plan composition...

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...

ABSTRACT The objective of the study investigates the effects of health on changing labor force participation during Pakistan's economic transition in the 1980s, a period of several economic liberalization and international integration on the health and financial sectors. The study employed the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) co-integration technique to estimate the short- and long-run ela...

Fertility behavior is constrained by the labor force status of both partners of a couple (married or cohabiting), and by how they distribute among them household chores, childcare, and paid work. Uncertainty about labor market prospects and associated income is also likely to influence fertility decisions. Moreover, institutional configurations specific to each country may influence the decisio...

Women’s participation in the labor force has increased substantially over the past half century. In 1930, 10 million women were in the labor force. They represented 24 percent of all working age women and 22 percent of the total work force. By 1955 the number of women workers had doubled, and their labor-force paticipation rate had risen to 36 percent. By 1979 the number had more than quadruple...