ABSTRACT
This chapter considers whether women’s increased presence in the labor market can be expected to dampen or amplify business-cycle swings in unemployment rates. It explores additional explanations for the lower cyclical responsiveness of female unemployment by examining data on individuals’ movements into and out of employment, unemployment, and the labor force. Data come from the Displaced Workers Survey, 1984 and 1986, a supplement to the January Current Population Survey. A promising avenue for explaining gender differences in cyclical unemployment and participation is the role played by the presence of other family or household members. In 1984 female unemployment rates following displacement were higher than the corresponding male rates, whereas the opposite was the case in 1986. The chapter explores the hypothesis that women’s low labor-force attachment serves to dampen the cyclical movements of unemployment rates.
