Labor supply and time use: evidence from cohabiting women in the United States

The population of unmarried heterosexual cohabiting women has nearly tripled in the US over the past two decades. While previous studies have tended to ignore these women, or treat them as single/married, this paper examines the labor supply responses of cohabiting women, single women, and married women from 1996 to 2016 using March-CPS. A comparison of the three groups finds that cohabiting women have the lowest labor force participation elasticity with respect to after-tax wages. That cohabiting women would work more hours if their partners earned more annually and married women would not, points to another behavioral difference between the two groups. Results from ATUS-CPS 2003-2017 further imply that cohabiting women share some of the same characteristics of single and married women. We conclude that unmarried heterosexual cohabiting women should be classified as a separate female group.