Mothers and Sons: Preference Formation and Female Labor Force Dynamics

This paper argues that the growing presence of a new type of man—one brought up in a family in which the mother worked—has been a significant factor in the increase in female labor force participation over time. We present cross-sectional evidence showing that the wives of men whose mothers worked are themselves significantly more likely to work. We use variation in the importance of World War II as a shock to women's labor force participation—as proxied by variation in the male draft rate across U. S. states—to provide evidence in support of the intergenerational consequences of our propagation mechanism.