The Effect of Household Appliances on Female Labor Force Participation: Evidence from Micro Data

摘要

We estimate the effect of household appliance ownership on the labor force participation rate of married women using micro-level data from the 1960 and 1970 U.S. Censuses. In order to identify the causal effect of home appliance ownership on married womenu27s labor force participation rates, our empirical strategy exploits both time-series and cross-sectional variation in these two variables. To control for endogeneity, we instrument a married womanu27s ownership of an appliance by the average ownership rate for that appliance among single women living in the same U.S. state. Single womenu27s labor force participation rates did not increase between 1960 and 1970. By our estimation, the diffusion of household appliances accounts for about forty percent of the observed increase in married womenu27s labor force participation rates during the 1960’s.