Gender Speci c Labor Market Participation Over the Life Cycle : A Comparison of Great Britain and West Germany 1

Labor market participation rates of German and British females have risen during the last decades, whereas participation rates of males declined or remained stable. Nevertheless between the countries, di erences in aggregate gender speci c participation rates remain. Both countries di er with respect to economic development, labor market institutions, and the framework of the welfare system. Particularly important for female labor supply are institutional features like taxation of spouses and family policy in general. The purpose of the paper is to compare aggregate life cycle participation pro les of British and German males and females of di erent skill levels to receive descriptive evidence on potential in uences of institutional di erences on aggregate participation rates between the countries. Usually, participation trends are descriptively analyzed based upon crosstabulations of participation measures by year, skill level, and sex. In contrast, this paper uses a model which takes simultaneously into account the e ects of time, age, and birth cohort membership. The estimation results allow to construct and compare country, gender, and skill speci c life cycle participation pro les. This empirical analysis of aggregate participation rates of West German and British males and females over a time period of 20 years is based upon data obtained from the German Microcensus and the British General Household Survey. This paper is part of the research project \Holen die Frauen auf? Ein Vergleich von Erwerbsverhalten, Beschaftigung und Verdiensten deutscher und britischer Frauen im Zeitverlauf" at the Centre of European Economic Research (ZEW). I thank Bernd Fitzenberger for his generous support and Reinhold Schnabel and Martin Salm for providing the German and British data. Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), Department of Labor Economics, Human Resources, and Social Policy, 68161 Mannheim, L7,1. E{mail: [email protected]. January 19, 2001 at the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), Mannheim.