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  5. Singles, Couples, and Their Labor Supply: Long-Run Trends and Short-Run Fluctuations

American Economic Journal:
Macroeconomics

ISSN 1945-7707 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7715 (Online)

Singles, Couples, and Their Labor Supply: Long-Run Trends and Short-Run Fluctuations

  • Jonna Olsson
American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics (Forthcoming)

Abstract

Women’s increased involvement in the economy has been an important change in labor markets during the past century. I show that a macroeconomic model taking into account gender and household composition in an otherwise parsimonious off-the-shelf setting captures key historical labor supply facts regarding trend and volatility across subgroups. Evaluating the economy’s response to aggregate shocks at different points in time shows that the underlying trend growth in married women’s employment contributed to the perceived quick employment recoveries after recessions before 1990, and the absence of growth thereafter consequently helps explain the more recent slower recoveries.

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