The increase in labor supply of married women in Uruguay

This paper examines the uncompensated elasticity of labor supply to real labor income (own and partner) and household income among married women in Uruguay (1991-2006) based on cross-sectional data. As has been shown for other countries, women’s labor supply is considerably more sensitive to their own wages than men’s. The own wage elasticity is relatively stable in the nineties and it is slightly decreasing in the 2000s. Children in home (negative) and schooling (positive) have the strongest incidence in labor hours. More educated women present smaller and decreasing wage elasticities. Public policies must consider children care and promote joint responsibility between men and women on non remunerated work in order to facilitate female employment.