Single mothers and work

Abstract

Western countries differ greatly in the extent to which single mothers participate in the labormarket. Using LIS data for 15 countries, I propose and estimate a simple structural model oflabor supply that incorporates the main variables that influence the work decision for singlemothers. The results suggest that a large part of the cross country variation in theemployment rates of single mothers can be explained by their different demographiccharacteristics and by the variation in expected income in the in-work versus out-of-workstates. Women with higher expected earnings are more likely to work. Higher in-work benefitsencourage employment. Single mothers with higher income from other sources, includingchild support, are less likely to work. Even after demographic and income variables arecontrolled for, the country dummies remain significant. This indicates that other variables notexplicitly incorporated in the model, such as childcare arrangements or social and culturalbackgrounds, may also play a relevant role.

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