published in: Socio-Economic Review, 2004, 2 (2), 285-313
Western countries differ greatly in the extent to which single mothers participate in the labor
market. Using LIS data for 15 countries, I propose and estimate a simple structural model of
labor supply that incorporates the main variables that influence the work decision for single
mothers. The results suggest that a large part of the cross country variation in the
employment rates of single mothers can be explained by their different demographic
characteristics and by the variation in expected income in the in-work versus out-of-work
states. Women with higher expected earnings are more likely to work. Higher in-work benefits
encourage employment. Single mothers with higher income from other sources, including
child support, are less likely to work. Even after demographic and income variables are
controlled for, the country dummies remain significant. This indicates that other variables not
explicitly incorporated in the model, such as childcare arrangements or social and cultural
backgrounds, may also play a relevant role.
We use cookies to provide you with an optimal website experience. This includes cookies that are necessary for the operation of the site as well as cookies that are only used for anonymous statistical purposes, for comfort settings or to display personalized content. You can decide for yourself which categories you want to allow. Please note that based on your settings, you may not be able to use all of the site's functions.
Cookie settings
These necessary cookies are required to activate the core functionality of the website. An opt-out from these technologies is not available.
In order to further improve our offer and our website, we collect anonymous data for statistics and analyses. With the help of these cookies we can, for example, determine the number of visitors and the effect of certain pages on our website and optimize our content.