MARC Record from Library of Congress

LEADER: 02312nam a22002777a 4500
001 2007616511
003 DLC
005 20070911093349.0
007 cr |||||||||||
008 070910s2007 mau sb 000 0 eng
010 $a 2007616511
040 $aDLC$cDLC
050 00 $aHB1
100 1 $aFernandez, Raquel.
245 10 $aCulture as learning$h[electronic resource] :$bthe evolution of female labor force participation over a century /$cRaquel Fernandez.
260 $aCambridge, MA :$bNational Bureau of Economic Research,$cc2007.
490 1 $aNBER working paper series ;$vworking paper 13373
538 $aSystem requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader.
538 $aMode of access: World Wide Web.
500 $aTitle from PDF file as viewed on 9/10/2007.
530 $aAlso available in print.
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references.
520 3 $a"Married women's labor 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 hold heterogeneous beliefs regarding the relative long-run payoffs for women who work in the market versus the home. These beliefs evolve rationally via an intergenerational learning process. Women are assumed to learn about the long-term payoffs of working by observing (noisy) private and public signals. They then make a work decision. This process generically generates an S-shaped figure for female labor force participation, which is what is found in the data. The S shape results from the dynamics of learning. I calibrate the model to several key statistics and show that it does a good job in replicating the quantitative evolution of female LFP in the US over the last 120 years. The model highlights a new dynamic role for changes in wages via their effect on intergenerational learning. The calibration shows that this role was quantitatively important in several decades"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
710 2 $aNational Bureau of Economic Research.
830 0 $aWorking paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) ;$vworking paper no. 13373.
856 40 $uhttp://papers.nber.org/papers/w13373