This article empirically examines the labour market participation of Italian women, with special emphasis on the role of intergenerational family links. Elderly relatives may play an important role in explaining the work patterns of women. First, they discourage the work participation of women by requiring unpaid help; secondly, they also provide household services such as child care, favouring...

This paper attempts to explore the connections between expanding female education and the participation of women in paid employment in Japan, China and India, three of Asia’s largest economies. Analysis based on data and literature shows that despite the large expansion in educational access in these countries in the last half century women lack egalitarian labour market opportunities. A combin...

We estimate the e¤ect of child home care allowance to parents’ labour supply. A municipal supplement to home care allowance in Finnish child care system provides exogenous variation to labour supply. The supplement allows us to compare labour outcomes of similar families that receive di¤erent home care allowances because they live in di¤erent municipalities. The results for mothers indicate a l...

This paper examines alternative approaches to wage subsidy programs. It does this in the context of a recent active labour market reform for the young unemployed in Britain. This “New Deal” reform and the characteristics of the target group are examined in detail. We discuss theoretical considerations, survey the existing empirical evidence and propose two strategies for evaluation. The first s...

This paper considers the role of language in labour earnings in South Africa over the period 1996 to 1998. Our pooled cross-section comprises of over 160,000 working age adults, and the analysis considers the decision to participate in the labour force, employment prospects and labour earnings. Models include variables for individual mother tongue in addition to population group. After conditio...

As governments become increasingly concerned about the fiscal implications of the ageing population, labour market policies have sought to encourage mature workers to remain in the labour force. The ‘human capital’ discourses motivating these policies rest on the assumption that older workers armed with motivation and vocational skills will be able to return to fulfilling work. This paper uses ...