Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vvkck Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T09:12:51.472Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Employment Effects of Recession on Couples in the UK: Women's and Household Employment Prospects and Partners’ Job Loss

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 April 2011

SUSAN HARKNESS  and
MARTIN EVANS
SUSAN HARKNESS
Affiliation:
Centre for Analysis of Social Policy, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY email: s.harkness@bath.ac.uk
MARTIN EVANS
Affiliation:
Oxford Institute of Social Policy, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 2ER email: martin.evans@spi.ox.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The effect that the 2008/09 recession has had on unemployment and, in particular, on the distribution of job losses across households is of key concern to policymakers. During the 1991 recession rising male unemployment was associated with a sharp increase in the number of workless households, with this polarisation of work between ‘work-rich’ and ‘work-poor’ persisting many years later. Part of the reason for this polarisation was that the design of the tax and benefit system produced weak work incentives for women partnered to unemployed men, particularly if the jobs open to them were either part time or low paid. Since 1999, the United Kingdom has undertaken reform of employment and transfer programmes, with a particular focus on boosting incomes and work incentives for families with children. The resulting literature focussed on the impact that these reforms had on women's movements into employment. Since the economy entered recession in 2008, an increasingly important question is how have these reforms affected women's decisions to remain in employment (or enter into work) if their partner becomes unemployed. This paper uses Labour Force Survey data to assess the effect of male job loss on their partners' employment and to examine the implications for the distribution of jobs across households. Results suggest that working women whose partners lost their jobs in the 2008/09 recession were more likely to remain in work than before and this has helped to mediate the growth in workless couple households.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 40 , Issue 4 , October 2011 , pp. 675 - 693
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Berthoud, R. (2007), Work Rich and Work Poor: Three Decades of Change, Bristol: Joseph Rowntree Foundation for the Policy Press.Google Scholar
Bingley, P. and Walker, I. (2001), ‘Household unemployment and the labor supply of married women’, Economica, 68: 270, 157–85.Google Scholar
Blau, F. and Kahn, L. (2007), ‘Changes in the labor supply behavior of married women: 1980–2000’, Journal of Labor Economics, 25: 393–438.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blundell, R. (2000), ‘Work incentives and “in-work” benefit reforms: a review’, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 16: 1, 27–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blundell, R. and Walker, I. (1986), ‘A life-cycle consistent empirical model of family labour supply using cross-section data’, Review of Economic Studies, 53: 4, 539–58.Google Scholar
Boushey, H. (2009), ‘The new breadwinners’, in Boushey, H. and O'Leary, A. (eds.), The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Changes Everything, Washington, DC: Center for American Progress.Google Scholar
Brewer, M. (2003), The New Tax Credits, IFS Briefing Paper 35, London: Institute for Fiscal Studies.Google Scholar
Brewer, M., Saez, E. and Shephard, A. (2010), ‘Means testing and tax rates on earnings’, in Mirrlees, J., Adam, S., Besley, T., Blundell, R., Bond, S., Chote, R., Gammie, M., Johnson, P., Myles, G. and Poterba, J. (eds.), Dimensions of Tax Design: The Mirrlees Review, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brown, J. (1990), Victims of Villains? Social Security Benefit in Unemployment, London: Policy Studies Institute.Google Scholar
Calmfors, L. (1994), Active Labour Market Policy and Unemployment: A Framework for the Analysis of Crucial Design Features, OECD Economic Studies 22, Paris: OECD.Google Scholar
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) (2010), Election 2010 Briefing: The Economy and Jobs, London: Chartered Institute of Personnel Development.Google Scholar
Corry, B. and Roberts, J. (1974), ‘Activity rates and unemployment: the UK experience – some further results’, Applied Economics, 6: 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dilnot, A. and Kell, M. (1987), ‘Male unemployment and women's work’, Fiscal Studies, 8: 3, 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dilnot, A. and McRae, J. (1999), ‘The family credit system and the working families’ tax credit in the United Kingdom’, Paper presented at an OECD workshop Making Work Pay, 10/11 September 1999.Google Scholar
Doris, A. (1999), The Means Testing of Benefits and the Labour Supply of the Wives of Unemployed Men: Results from a Fixed Effects Model, Economics, Finance and Accounting Department Working Paper Series n930999, Maynooth: National University of Ireland.Google Scholar
Evans, M. and Harkness, S. (2010), ‘The impact of the tax and benefit system on second earners’, Journal of Poverty and Social Justice, 18: 1, 35–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Francesconi, M., Rainer, H. and Van Der Klaauw, W. (2009), ‘The effects of in-work benefit reform in Britain on couples: theory and evidence’, Economic Journal, 119: 535, 66–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldin, C. (1990), Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Greenhalgh, C. (1980), ‘Participation and hours of work for married women in Great Britain’, Oxford Economic Papers, 32: 2, 296–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gregg, P., Harkness, S. and Smith, S. (2009), ‘Welfare reform and lone parents in the UK’, Economic Journal, 119: 535, 38–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gregg, P. and Wadsworth, J. (1996), ‘More work in fewer households’, in Hills, J. (ed.), New Inequalities: The Changing Distribution of Income and Wealth in the United Kingdom, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gruber, J. and Cullen, J. (1996), Spousal Labor Supply as Insurance: Does Unemployment Insurance Crowd Out the Added Worker Effect? NBER Working Paper W5608, Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamermesh, D. (2002), ‘Timing, togetherness and time windfalls’,Journal of Population Economics, 15: 4, 601–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harker, L. (2006), Delivering on Child Poverty: What would it Take? A Report for the Department of Work and Pensions, Cmd 6951, London: The Stationary Office.Google Scholar
Harkness, S. (2010), The Contribution of Women's Employment and Earnings to Household Income Inequality: A Cross-Country Analysis, Luxembourg Income Survey Working Paper Series 531, Luxembourg: Luxembourg Income Survey.Google Scholar
Hausman, J. and Rund, P. (1984), ‘Family labor supply with taxes’, American Economic Review, 74: 242–8.Google Scholar
Heckman, J. and Macurdy, T. (1980), ‘A life cycle model of female labor supply’, Review of Economic Studies, 47: 47–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Layard, R., Barton, M. and Zabalza, A. (1980), ‘Married women's participation and hours’, Economica, 47: 185, 51–72.Google Scholar
Lundberg, S. (1981), The Added-Worker Effect: A Reappraisal, NBER Working Paper 706, Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lundberg, S. (1985), ‘The added worker effect’, Journal of Labor Economics, 3: 1, 11–37.Google Scholar
Lyon, N., Barnes, M. and Sweiry, D. (2006), Families with Children in Britain: Findings from the 2004 Families and Children Survey, DWP Research Report 340, London: Department of Work and Pensions.Google Scholar
Mincer, J. (1962), ‘Labor force participation of married women’, in Groves, H. (ed.), Aspects of Labor Economics, Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.Google Scholar
Moylan, S., Millar, J. and Davies, R. (1984), For Richer, for Poorer? DHSS Cohort Study of Unemployed Men, Department of Health and Social Security, London: Her Majesty's Stationary Office.Google Scholar
Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2008), Statistical Bulletin: Labour Market Statistics, November, Newport: Office for National Statistics.Google Scholar
Office for National Statistics (ONS) (2010), Statistical Bulletin: Labour Market Statistics, February, Newport: Office for National Statistics.Google Scholar
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (1996), ‘Earnings inequality, low-paid employment and earnings mobility’, Employment Outlook, Paris: OECD.Google Scholar
Pudney, S. and Thomas, J. (1993), ‘Alternative approaches to modelling individual transitions: the labour force participation of the wives of unemployed men in the UK’, Statistica, 53: 467–86.Google Scholar
Smith, K. (2009), Increased Reliance on Wives as Breadwinners during the First Year of the Recession, Carsey Institute Issue Brief 9, University of New Hampshire.Google Scholar
Spletzer, J. R. (1997), ‘Re-examining the added worker effect’, Economic Inquiry, 35: 417–27.Google Scholar
Wotinsky, W. (1942), Three Aspects of Labor Dynamics, Washington, DC: Social Science Research Council, Committee on Social Security.Google Scholar