Why Do So Few Women Work in New York (And So Many in Minneapolis)? Labor Supply of Married Women across U.S. Cities

Yet another contributing factor to variation in local female labor supply is the cost of child care.

Abstract:

This paper documents a little-noticed feature of U.S. labor markets — very large variation in the labor supply of married women across cities. We focus on cross-city differences in commuting times as a potential explanation for this variation. We start with a model in which commuting times introduce non-convexities into the budget set. Empirical evidence is consistent with the model’s predictions: Labor force participation rates of married women are negatively correlated with the metropolitan area commuting time. Also, metropolitan areas with larger increases in average commuting time in 1980-2000 had slower growth in the labor force participation of married women.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 35

Keywords: female labor supply, local labor markets, commuting time, non-convex budget sets

JEL Classification: J21, J22, R23, R41

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