Working Paper No. 02-21

To Work or Not To Work? The Effects of Partner Earnings and Children on Women's Labor Supply
Sylvia Allegretto
November 2002

ABSTRACT

This study uses the 1990 Census to examine and compare the labor force participation decisions of three groups of women: married, cohabiting opposite-sex and cohabiting same-sex. Of particular interest are the effects of children and partner earnings onlabor supply for all three groups. The lower labor force participation of married women compared to the two cohabiting groups in part reflects the fact that married women are more likely to have children and higher earning partners. Cohabiting women, particularly cohabiting gay women, who have children and high earning partners appear to engage in household specialization that is similar to married women. Even so, there are still large differences in labor supply determination between the three groups of women. In order to ascertain whether this reflects the fact that many of the cohabiting women are engaged in shorter-term, less committed relationships, the mobility questions in the census are used to construct a sample of women who have lived with their current partner for at least five years. Conditioning on long-term relationships does not have a qualitative effect on the results.

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