ABSTRACT

Using 2000 U.S. census data, we attempt to bridge the married women’s labor supply literature with the sexual orientation labor supply literature. First, we document differences in labor supply between primary and secondary earners in partnered lesbian households, in line with a household specialization model suggested in Becker (1981). We then compare and contrast partnered lesbians to married men (primary earner) and women (secondary earner). The annual hours of primary earners are greater than that of secondary earners irrespective of sexual orientation, although the differential within lesbian households is smaller than in married households. Second, we illustrate that, in line with the specialization hypothesis, the labor supply decisions of primary and secondary earners in partnered lesbian households are differentially affected by observed characteristics, particularly children and partner’s wages. We show that the results for primary (secondary) lesbians are more consistent with those found for married men (women). Finally, we use the semi-parametric DiNardo, Fortin, Lemieux (1996) decomposition approach to decompose the female sexual orientation gap in labor supply independently for primary and secondary earners in partnered lesbian households. We find that the role of children in explaining the labor supply gap by sexual orientation is greatly understated if the household division of labor between household and market work is not taken into account. Children explain a much larger portion of the labor supply gap between married women and secondary lesbian earners (45 percent) than between married women and primary lesbian earners (9 percent). Finally, observable characteristics account for 50 percent of the labor supply gap between married women and secondary lesbian earners, but only 20 percent of the gap between married women and primary lesbian earners.
 

Wednesday, November 5, 2008
12:20 P.M. – 1:45 P.M.
UCLA School of Law, Room 2448

Please RSVP for to attend (click here). Lunch provided.