This Paper presents intergenerational evidence in favour of the hypothesis that a significant factor explaining the increase in female labour force participation over time was the growing presence of men who grew up with a different family model – one in which their mother worked. We use...

Gender-based discrimination is a pervasive and costly phenomenon. To a greater or lesser extent, all economies present a gender wage gap, associated with lower female labour force participation rates and higher fertility. This paper presents a growth model where saving, fertility and labour...

Married women's labour force participation has increased dramatically over the last century. Why this has occurred has been the subject of much debate. This paper investigates the role of culture as learning in this change. To do so, it develops a dynamic model of culture in which individuals...

The existence and extent of cyclically-induced changes in the size of the conventionally-defined labour force is examined for women aged 20-59 in Britain, 1951-81. The method is to compare changes in the actual labour force between decennial censuses and recent biennial Labour Force Surveys with...

We study the effect of culture on important economic outcomes by using the 1970 Census to examine the work and fertility behaviour of women 30-40 years old, born in the US, but whose parents were born elsewhere. We use past female labour force participation and total fertility rates from the...

The secular rise in female labour force participation, highlighted in the recent macroeconomics literature on growth and structural change, has been associated with the declining price and wider availability of home appliances. This paper uses a new and unique country dataset on the price of...

Until the early decades of the 20th century, women spent more than 60% of their prime-age years either pregnant or nursing. Since then, the introduction of infant formula reduced women's comparative advantage in infant care, by providing an effective breast milk substitute. In addition, improved...