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Journal of Labor Economics Vol. 3 No. 3 1985

The Joint Determination of Household Membership and Market Work: The Case of Young Men

Marjorie B. McElroy

open access

Abstract

Except in special cases, market work and household membership are jointly chosen. A Nash bargaining model of family behavior is used to specify stochastic structural relationships (two indirect utility functions and a market and a reservation wage function) that jointly determine work, consumption, and household membership. The maximum likelihood estimates of the implied trinomial probit model differ sharply from those obtained when either market work or household membership is taken as exogenous. This application to white male youths from the National Longitudinal Surveys shows the insurance function of families: parents insure their sons against poor market opportunities.

DOI
10.1086/298057
Volume
3
Issue
3
Pages
293-316
Language
en
Sources
openalex crossref

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