Married Women's Labor Supply Decision and Husband's Work Status: The Experience of Taiwan

Abstract

Female labor force participation rate has increased from 36% in the 1960s to 46% in 2000 and this sharp increase has been due to married women. At the same time, the proportion of wage-employed (employee) workers is increasing while the proportion of non-wage-employed (mainly self-employed) workers is declining. Employee workers have relatively more secure and stable salary income compared to non-employee worker facing more volatile income due to the risks of running business. Employee workers and non-employee workers differ in their job stability. The purpose of this study is to investigate empirically the effect of husband's employee/non-employee work status on married women's labor supply decision based on the data drawn from the 1979 to 2000 Manpower Survey and the supplement of Women's Marriage, Fertility and Employment Survey. Our empirical results indicate that compared to married women whose husbands were employee workers, women whose husbands were non-employee workers or non-workers were more likely to participate in the labor market. Moreover, the effects of husband's employee/non-employee status on married women's labor force participation differ at various economic development stage.