Labor-Saving Durables, Women’s Labor-Force Participation, and Government Macroeconomic Policy: The Case of Postwar Britain

Effects of labor force participation on women's health are evaluated in analyses of longitudinal data for a national sample of older middle-aged women. Our findings indicate that labor force participation had beneficial effects on health for unmarried women and for married black women, but, on the average, labor force participation had no significant effect on health for married white women. Analyses by occupational category suggest that labor force participation had beneficial effects on health for some blue collar married women, but, on the average, labor force participation had harmful effects on health for white collar married women. Our findings, taken together with previous evidence, suggest that employment may increase social support, and job-related social support may have particularly beneficial effects on health for unmarried women and for married women whose husbands are not emotionally supportive confidants. Additional results from this study showed no significant difference in the health effects of part-time and full-time employment.

Association of Working Status with Nutrient Intake and Adequacy in Married Japanese Women

A strong and negative Correlation between married women's labor force participation and fertility has been witnessed in Japan in past decades.Relative to empirical studies of a traditional single equation on female labor supply, there exist few econometric studies dealing explicitly with a possible interdependency between married women's labor supply and fertility behaviors in urban Japan.Using the recently published 1980 Population Census of Japan, we have estimated a simultaneous_equation model of married women's labor force participation and fertility in urban Japan.Our model shows very satisfactory results to explain the negative correlation between those variables based on a method of 2SLS.Estimated labor supply elasticities for married women with respect to their fertility rates, wife's labor earnings, and male labor earnings are -0.67,0.23, and -1.76 at the sample means, respectively.On the other hand, estimated elasticities of fertility with respect to married women's labor force participation and family income are -0.31 and 0.23, respectively.We find some of these elasticities for Japanese married women very comparable to those of married women in the United States.

This study develops theory about the “second-order effects” of work, examining effects of women’s labor force participation on the subsequent status of females within their communities. We analyze four panels (1981, 1991, 2001, 2011) of census data from 17,000 villages in the Indian state of Gujarat using fixed effects models. Distinguishing women’s engagement in high and low status work, we find support for both economic and status equilibrium arguments: the influence of women’s employment within a community on future conditions for females in that community varies with the relative status of jobs undertaken. Results show that female labor force participation in low status jobs-manual labor-is associated with future increases in women’s fundamental status (ratio of girls to boys under six years old), making more females available for low status work, and decreases in women’s economic status (female literacy rate), reinforcing women’s place as low status workers. Conversely, high status female labor force participation-service and white-collar work-is unrelated to women’s fundamental status, but precedes increases in women’s economic status, allowing women options outside manual labor. Men’s labor force participation moderates effects of female labor force participation, attenuating both positive effects of female labor force participation on women’s fundamental status and negative effects of female labor force participation on women’s economic status. That female labor force participation has mixed effects on women’s status in subsequent periods raises the imperative for scholars of work inequality and gender to examine not only barriers to but also consequences of women’s work.

AimsTo assess the labour force participation and quantify the economic status of older Australian workers with multiple health conditions.BackgroundMany older people suffer from multiple health conditions. While multiple morbidities have been highlighted as an important research topic, there has been limited research in this area to date, particularly on the economic status of those with multiple morbidities.MethodsCross sectional analysis of Health&WealthMOD, a microsimulation model of Australians aged 45 to 64 years.ResultsPeople with one chronic health condition had 0.59 times the odds of being employed compared to those with no condition (OR 0.59, 95% CI: 0.49, 0.71), and those with four or more conditions had 0.14 times the odds of being employed compared to those with no condition (OR 0.14, 95% CI: 0.11, 0.18). People with one condition received a weekly income 32% lower than those with no health condition, paid 49 % less tax, and received 37% more in government transfer payments; those with four or more conditions received a weekly income 94% lower, paid 97% less in tax and received over 2,000% more in government transfer payments per week than those with no condition.ConclusionWhile having a chronic health condition is associated with lower labour force participation and poorer economic status, having multiple conditions compounds the affect – with these people being far less likely to be employed and having drastically lower incomes.

Gender equality in decent work and economic decision-making are still not ensured in Sri Lanka although it ensures gender parity in both education and health care. Marriage, culture, and traditional values challenge the human right of independent economic decision making among women in developing countries. The main objective of this study is to explore the ethno-specific drivers of Labor Force Participation among married women in Sri Lanka to capture deep insights into the ethno-cultural picture of the issue. Secondary data were used from the Sri Lankan Labour Force Survey 2018 including 14,533 married females and four Binary Logistic Regression models were derived for female labour force participation among ethnic subgroups. The analysis concludes that ethnicity plays a major role in the career contribution of married females in the country. Concerning married Sinhalese women, the married women representing the Sri Lankan/Indian Tamils are more probable to join in the labour market, while married women representing the Moors are less probable to participate as they are highly intertwined to traditional and cultural boundaries. Employment and occupational sector of husband, availability, and age of children, family income, age, residential sector, province, disability, vocational training, and digital literacy are the key drivers of career contribution of married women that reflect distinctive impacts on different ethnic groups. Finally, the study proposed possible policy recommendations for encouraging Female Labour Force participation by addressing the ethno-marital issues.

Housing cost and married women's labor force participation in 1980

House prices and female labor force participation

Few studies have assessed the impact of co-morbid conditions amongst patients with arthritis. This study will quantify the impact co-morbid health conditions have on the labour force status and economic circumstances of people with arthritis. This study uses a microsimulation model, Health&WealthMOD, to quantify the impact of co-morbidities on the labour force participation and economic circumstances of 45- to 64-year-old Australians with arthritis. The results show that the probability of being out of the labour force increases with increasing number of co-morbidities. However, there was no statistically significant difference in the amount of weekly private income received by people with arthritis and no co-morbidities, and people with arthritis and one or two co-morbidities. However, those with arthritis and three or more co-morbidities received a weekly private income 72 % lower than people with arthritis alone (95 % CI -82, -57). People with arthritis and co-morbidities paid less in tax and received more in government transfer payments. As such, it is important to consider the co-morbid conditions an individual has when assessing the impact of arthritis on labour force participation and economic circumstances. People with arthritis that have multiple co-morbid conditions are likely to have their labour force participation and economic circumstances interrupted much more than those with arthritis only.

BackgroundFamily planning, through access to safe and effective contraception, empowers women to make informed choices about their reproductive health. It is crucial in reducing unintended pregnancies, maternal mortality, and improving overall well-being. However, achieving equitable access to contraception remains a challenge in many low- and middle-income countries, including Sierra Leone. This study investigated the inequalities in contraceptive prevalence among married women of reproductive age (15-49 years) in Sierra Leone in 2008, 2013 and 2019.MethodsThis study employed time-trend study design utilizing data from three rounds of the Sierra Leone Demographic Health Survey conducted in 2008, 2013, and 2019. The health equity assessment toolkit software, developed by the World Health Organisation, was utilised to calculate various inequality measures. These include simple measures such as difference and ratio, as well as complex measures such as population attributable risk and fraction.ResultsThe prevalence of contraceptive use among reproductive-aged married women in Sierra Leone increased from 8.2% in 2008 to 21.2% in 2019. The inequality in married women's age in contraceptive prevalence between older and younger women decreased slightly from 7.5 percentage points in 2008 to 7.2 percentage points in 2019. The ratio also decreased, indicating a narrowing gap in contraceptive prevalence between the age groups over time. Inequality in economic status in contraceptive prevalence between married women in the richest and poorest wealth index decreased from 15.7 percentage points in 2008 to 9.9 percentage points in 2019. The population attributable fraction and population attributable risk decreased notably, suggesting that economic status became less of a determinant factor in contraceptive prevalence over time. The educational inequality in contraceptive prevalence between married women with secondary or higher education and those with no education experienced a decline from 16.5 percentage points in 2008 to 12.6 percentage points in 2019. Place of residence inequality in contraceptive prevalence between married women in urban and rural areas decreased from 11.2 percentage points in 2008 to 7.4 percentage points in 2019. Provincial inequality in contraceptive prevalence between married women in the Western area and Northwestern province decreased from 16.7 percentage points in 2008 to 8.6 percentage points in 2019. ConclusionThe prevalence of contraceptive use among reproductive-aged married women in Sierra Leone has notably increased over the past decade, accompanied by notable reductions in inequalities across age, economic status, education, place of residence, and geographic provinces. While inequalities persist, the narrowing gaps underscore progress in improving equitable access to contraceptive services. These findings underscore the importance of sustained efforts to address remaining inequalities and further enhance access to family planning resources for all women, particularly those in underserved populations.

Most research on married women's labor force participation relates characteristics of individual women to their probability of labor force participation. Some studies relate characteristics of geographic areas to average labor force participation rates in those areas, although these aggregate level analyses are usually gross tests of ideas about individual-level processes. Here we take a quintessentially sociological perspective and seek to understand how characteristics of geographic areas structure the relationship between properties of individual women and their probabilities of labor force participation. Our analysis has two steps. In step one, we fit individual-level probit models of married women's probability of labor force participation. A separate model is fitted in each of 409 areas using 1970 Census data, and the relationship between individual characteristics and labor force participation is found to vary substantially across areas. In step two, we attempt to explain areal variation in the effects of women's children on their labor force participation. We hypothesize that the effect of children on their mothers' labor force participation is a function of the cost and availability of childcare , and of the "convenience" of jobs for working mothers in the places where the mothers live. Measures of childcare cost, childcare availability and job convenience are developed. Weighted least squares analyses of probit coefficients from the first stage are, in general, very consistent with our findings, and suggest that the approach taken in this paper is likely to be a fruitful one for future studies.

This paper investigates the determinants of Japanese regional differences in female labor force participation rates. There is little regional difference in the labor force participation rates of unmarried women. In contrast, for married females, regional disparities are noticeable. Japanese female labor force participation rates show an age-specific pattern, with a big fall in participation around childbearing ages of the thirties. However, this age-specific pattern is more pronounced in some regions than in others. This study examines the factors that affect labor force participation of married women of working ages 15–64, using regional panel data. From the empirical analysis, we learn that the proportion of nuclear families has a significant negative association with married female participation rates. We find a strong relationship between family status and the labor force participation rates of married women. These findings are of great relevance to the design of policies aimed at improving the balance between work and childcare for married women, especially in the urban areas where the proportion of married women living with parents is relatively low. This is because married women of nuclear families have greater difficulty allocating their time between paid work and household chores. Policies that would significantly increase Japan’s female labor force participation must focus on the married women of childraising ages specifically in urban areas.

The goal of this paper is to analyse the economic development of Poland using the concept of macroeconomic policy regimes (MPRs). Six elements of a MPR will be identified: foreign economic policy, industrial policy, the financial system, wage policy, monetary policy and fiscal policy. Examining the functionality of the development of these elements applied to Poland is a further aim of this paper. The functionality of the development of the MPR elements will be analysed on the basis of the fulfilment of the objectives, as well as the use of the proposed instruments and strategy assigned to every element of MPR. Due to space limits, we are going to focus on the former in this paper. Taking into consideration that Poland is an emerging and a relatively open economy, foreign economic policy and industrial policy play very significant roles in restructuring of the economy towards production and exports of high value-added products, which would enable the country to follow a growth path consistent with an external balance. The financial needs of the manufacturing sector and particularly of the producers and/or exporters of high-end products need to be satisfied by the financial system, whose stability needs to be secured with the help of monetary policy. The latter is, moreover, in charge of providing low-cost finance and maintaining the stability of the exchange rate. Stabilising the inflation rate would be given to wage policy. Fiscal policy’s main tasks would be to correct aggregate demand shocks and reduce income inequality.

We contribute to the recent debates on demand and growth regimes in modern finance-dominated capitalism linking them to the post-Keynesian research on macroeconomic policy regimes. We examine the demand and growth regimes, as well as the macroeconomic policy regimes for the big four Eurozone countries, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, for the periods 2001–2009 and 2010–2019. First, our approach supports the usefulness of the identification of demand and growth regimes according to growth contributions of the main demand components and financial balances of the macroeconomic sectors. This allows for an understanding of the demand sources of growth, or stagnation, if there is a lack of demand, of how these sources are financed and of potential financial instabilities and fragilities. Second, when it comes to the macroeconomic policy drivers of demand and growth regimes, as well as their respective changes, we show that the exclusive focus on fiscal policies, as in the previous literature, is too limited and that it is the macroeconomic policy regime which matters here, i.e. the combination of monetary, fiscal and wage policies, as well as the open economy conditions.

The success of development highly depends on the balanced participation of both women and men in various aspects of life. Gender equality is an essential prerequisite to ensure that the benefits of development can be enjoyed fairly. Although gender differences are not an issue, differences in gender roles often lead to injustice. Nowadays, women not only play roles in households but also can work and pursue careers outside the home, and even participate in politics. Women's participation in parliament increased during the 2018-2019 period, although it has not yet reached the minimum target of 30%. This study aims to understand the social and cultural influences on the labor force participation of married women in Central Kalimantan Province, as well as the determining factors that drive them to enter the labor market. Additionally, this study measures the productivity of married working women, maps out the supporting and inhibiting factors for their participation, and proposes policies to enhance female labor force participation by opening up innovative job opportunities. The benefits of this study include a deeper understanding of the challenges faced by married women in the workplace, the development of more inclusive policies, the empowerment of women in the workplace, increased productivity and creativity, and contributions to broader social change. This study uses observation, surveys, and interviews in several administrative areas in Central Kalimantan Province. The data is analyzed to formulate policy recommendations that support equal employment opportunities for married women, with the hope of creating a more equitable and fair work environment.