Document de travail

The Missing Men: World War I and Female Labor Force Participation

Jörn Boehnke et Victor Gay

Résumé

Using spatial variation in World War I military fatalities in France, we show that the scarcity of men due to the war generated an upward shift in female labor force participation that persisted throughout the interwar period. Available data suggest that increased female labor supply accounts for this result. In particular, deteriorated marriage market conditions for single women and negative income shocks to war widows induced many of these women to enter the labor force after the war. In contrast, demand factors such as substitution toward female labor to compensate for the scarcity of male labor were of second-order importance.

Mots-clés

Female labor, World War I, Sex ratio, Marriage market, Labor supply;

Codes JEL

  • J12: Marriage • Marital Dissolution • Family Structure • Domestic Abuse
  • J16: Economics of Gender • Non-labor Discrimination
  • J22: Time Allocation and Labor Supply
  • N34: Europe: 1913-

Remplacé par

Jörn Boehnke et Victor Gay, « The Missing Men: World War I and Female Labor Force Participation », The Journal of Human Resources, vol. 57, n° 4, 2022, p. 1209–1241.

Référence

Jörn Boehnke et Victor Gay, « The Missing Men: World War I and Female Labor Force Participation », TSE Working Paper, n° 20-1064, janvier 2020.

Voir aussi

Publié dans

TSE Working Paper, n° 20-1064, janvier 2020