Explaining declining labor supply responses of married females
Although the consensus is that the labor supply of married females is more responsive than that of married males, it has also been reported that responses converge. This is also what we find for Norway when estimates are obtained by repeated estimations of a structural discrete choice labor supply model. The gross wage elasticity of married females falls from around 0.7 in 1997 to below 0.3 in 2019. The contribution of the present paper is to discuss factors behind this decline in responsiveness by employing a simulation procedure based on a structural labor supply model. We discuss effects of the following four categories of explanations: socioeconomic and demographic changes, wage growth, tax policy change, and preference shifts/changed opportunities in the labor market. We find that the wage growth contributes most to the decline in responsiveness.

Zhiyang Jia, Thor O. Thoresen & Trine E. Vattø
Date: 19 February 2024, 15:00 (Monday, 6th week, Hilary 2024)
Venue: Saïd Business School, Park End Street OX1 1HP
Speaker: Thor O.Thoresen (Statistics Norway)
Organising department: Saïd Business School
Organiser: Kristoffer Berg (Saïd Business School)
Organiser contact email address: cbtevents@sbs.ox.ac.uk
Part of: Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation Research Seminars
Booking required?: Required
Booking email: cbtevents@sbs.ox.ac.uk
Audience: Members of the University only
Editor: Alison Meeson