College
College of Business Administration (CBA)
Date of Last Revision
2023-05-03 16:32:34
Major
Economics
Honors Course
3250 497-003
Number of Credits
3
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Date of Expected Graduation
Fall 2019
Abstract
What literature exists on women’s labor suggests that as women gain financial and economic freedom, their role in the family and home shifts as well. The sharp rise in women’s labor force participation in the latter half of the 20th century provides fertile grounds for testing this hypothesis and quantifying the effect of working on the institution of marriage. Employment could potentially help or harm an existing marriage or contribute to the selection of compatible partners. In this paper, I examine the impact of rising women's labor force participation rates on divorce rates, marital satisfaction, and women's age at first marriage. Econometric analysis is conducted in three regressions, modeling divorce rates, satisfaction, and age separately as functions of women's labor force participation and isolating for confounding variables including income, education, children, debt, and other factors that impact marriage as indicated by current literature. Variables are primarily taken from the US Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics and span from the mid-20th century to present.
Research Sponsor
Dr. Amanda Weinstein
First Reader
Dr. Michael Nelson
Second Reader
Dr. Elizabeth Erickson
Honors Faculty Advisor
Dr. Elizabeth Erickson
Recommended Citation
McCollum, Karris, "The working wife: a three-pronged model of marriage and women's employment" (2019). Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects. 1018.
https://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/honors_research_projects/1018