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Work Relief and the Labor Force Participation of Married Women in 1940

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

T. Aldrich Finegan  and
Robert A. Margo
T. Aldrich Finegan
Affiliation:
Professor of Economics, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37235.
Robert A. Margo
Affiliation:
Professor of Economics, Vanderbilt University, and Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA 02140.
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Abstract

Economic analysis of the labor supply of married women has long emphasized the impact of the unemployment of husbands—the added worker effect. This article re-examines the magnitude of the added worker effect in the waning years of the Great Depression. Previous studies of the labor supply of married women during this period failed to take account of various institutional features of New Deal work relief programs, which reduced the size of the added worker effect.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , March 1994 , pp. 64 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1994

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