Unemployment and Marriage Status
The unemployment rate includes only those who are actively seeking a job, and seeking a job involves different incentives for married couples versus single heads of household.
Intelligence analysis by Llama
The unemployment rate for married men and women moves in sync across business cycles, but women who maintain families have a markedly higher unemployment rate due to different incentives and job search behaviors.
Imagine you're married and have a job. Your spouse might not need to work as much because you both have a steady income. But if you're a single mom, you might need to work more to support your family, so you'll look for a job more often and be less likely to give up.
Analysis
The Unemployment Rate: A Complex Story of Marriage and Labor Market Dynamics
The unemployment rate is a widely used indicator of labor market health, but it can be misleading when not considered in the context of marriage and family dynamics. The unemployment rate includes only those who are actively seeking a job, and seeking a job involves different incentives for married couples versus single heads of household. Married couples may have lower incentives to work due to the presence of a second income, while women who maintain families may have higher incentives to work due to the need to support their families.
Our FRED graph above shows the unemployment rate for married men (blue solid line) and married women (green dashed line) as well as women heads of household (dotted orange line). There are a few stories revealed in this graph: The series for married women and the series for married men move in sync across business cycles. In the early years, these two series were separated by about 2 percentage points until they converged in the 1990s. The unemployment rate is considerably higher for women who maintain families—in single-parent households or in households where they’re the main breadwinner.
To be clear: The unemployment rate is not the fraction of those not working in the general population. The unemployment rate is the fraction of persons in the total labor force who are not working but are actively available and looking for a job. The labor force is made up of these persons plus those who are actively working. The employment dynamics of marriage Someone who’s married may be more likely to choose not to work than a single person. Also, women, in particular married women , have progressively increased their participation in the labor force over time. Thus, both sides of the unemployment rate may be affected in complex ways by the dynamics of marriage. If one spouse in a married couple has a job, the incentives for the other spouse to work can be lower than a single person’s incentives. So, they may voluntarily choose not to work and remove themselves completely from the labor force. A smaller labor force raises the unemployment rate. If the non-working spouse is opportunistic about finding a job, they may be included in the labor force only when they have a job. This would lower the unemployment rate. Women who maintain families The situation is quite different for women who maintain families: They may need a job much more than married women. Hence, they may look much more intensely and frequently for a job and are less likely to be opportunistic about it and abandon their job search. So, their unemployment rate is markedly higher.
Key points
- The unemployment rate includes only those actively seeking a job.
- Married couples may have lower incentives to work due to a second income.
- Women who maintain families have higher incentives to work due to family needs.
- The unemployment rate for married men and women moves in sync across business cycles.
- Women who maintain families have a markedly higher unemployment rate.
If more married couples choose to work, the labor force could increase, leading to lower unemployment rates and a more robust economy.
If women who maintain families are less likely to find jobs, their unemployment rates could remain high, leading to social and economic challenges.
