Abstract

MACHADO, Cândida Sofia. Female labor force participation and household expenditure patterns. Economia Global e Gestão [online]. 2007, vol.12, n.2, pp.35-51. ISSN 0873-7444.

Surprisingly for a Southern European country, female participation in the labor market increased very sharply in Portugal from the 1960s onwards, such that nowadays the country has one of the highest female activity rates in the European Union, after Scandinavia, the UK and the Netherlands. This paper investigates the impact of female labor force participation on the consumption behavior of Portuguese households, focusing on the following expenses household services, personal services, food away from home, childcare, culture, and travel for tourism. It relies on micro data on individuals and their households. Estimation of Tobit models indicates that most of the services under analysis can be considered luxury items. Moreover, households with an employed wife allocate a higher proportion of their budget to culture, travel, childcare, food away from home, and domestic services, than do households where the woman does not participate in the labor force.

Keywords : Consumption; Services; Female Employment.

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