Gender Ratio and Intra-Household Collective Decision Process: Evidence from Iranian Household Labor Supply

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Abstract

This paper provides an empirical investigation on individual labour supply of Iranian spouses in an intra-household collective decision framework in which gender ratio plays a central role in the household’s resources allocation. The data set is taken from the socioeconomic characteristics of panel survey over the period 2001-2004 and ten yearly headcount of Iran. We have conducted the parameters estimation and hypothesis testing by generalized procedure of sample selection in a panel setting. Our findings evidence that females’ labour supply is affected by the gender ratio (total number of males over the females in the same provinces, both in the urban and rural areas) significantly and strongly. In addition, the own wage of couples drives spouse’s individual work hours positively, and the sign of cross wage effect is negative but less than the own wages’ coefficient in absolute value. These results are compatible with the theoretical expectations. Although the paper does not have any theoretical contributions, this is the first attempt and application of collective decision theory in Iranian economy.
JEL Classification: D13, J22

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