Models of Female Labour Supply, with Special Reference to the Effects of Children

Much of the public concern about the growing labor force participation of women centers on feared, or hoped for, effects of the market work of mothers on the well-being of their children. On the one side, there are those who fear that the children of working mothers will not receive the care they need, and that women with jobs will more readily divorce their husbands leading to the breakup of the family units on which children depend. On the other side, it is argued that the earning power of their mothers is the only protection large numbers of children have against poverty when the earnings of their fathers are basically inadequate, when fathers are unemployed or ill for long periods of time, or when fathers financially abandon their children