Further developments in the dynamics of female labour force participation

Pena-Boquete, Y. (2015). Further developments in the dynamics of  
female labour force participation. Empirical Economics. DOI:  
10.1007/s00181-015-0931-1

Abstract

Papers attempting to explain female labour force participation either  
do not include women-specific variables or lack a proper dynamic  
specification. In this paper, we estimate a dynamic equation for  
female labour force participation in OECD countries from 1980 to 2007,  
taking into account several sets of variables. Moreover, we use our  
model to predict the results for 2007–2011, and we find that our model  
adjusts quite well to the actual data even with regard to the  
out-sample observations during the ongoing recession. In order to gain  
further insight concerning the interpretation and robustness of the  
equation, it is then compared to a similar equation for males. Our  
results show that real wage is one of the most relevant variables for  
female participation. Thus our specification could also be useful to  
endogenise labour force participation for a macro-labour market  
framework such as that of Layard et al. (1991, rev. 2005). However,  
women’s preferences, the overall level of education, and other  
structural factors are also important.