Family Labour Supply

Family Labour Supply:

Interaction between Males and Females in the Labour Force Market

From: Daria A. Novosad

To: Professor J. Beare

Student #: 209782657

Date: 29/May/2013

York Univerisity

Introduction

In the last two decades major changes have been made to the understanding of labour supply in the world of economics. Economists analyzed several increases and decreases in the supply of labour force market and interaction between males and females in the family. Back in 19th century, the majority of women were isolated from labour force by spending full time in the household and families. Therefore, female labour supply was not taken into a consideration as much as males’ due to women not working at all. Nowadays, women’s occupation has changed and resulted in more females entered the labour force. Thus, we recognize the dramatic increase in females’ labour supply starting from 1980s. However, in this paper I would like to analyze the labour supply relationship between husband and wife in the household that are employed in the labour force market. I will, therefore, examine impacts of wage rates, hours worked and amount of leisure taken within the family. In addition, the childbearing and fertility rates in the household are explored in this paper. The analysis represents the impact of childbearing costs on family labour supply of both spouses and their earnings. Finally, last section of this analysis examines effects of family tax reform that operates in developed countries such as Canada or United States of America since 1980s.

In conclusion, we come to an understanding that active employment of married females eventually impacts their husbands’ wage rates and hours of work in the labour force market. In addition, I will, therefore, state that fertility rates and childbearing costs have strong impact on husband-wife families by decreasing labour supplies of both spouses in the labour market. Therefore, the analysis of hours spent in the labour...