In their analysis of the change in the supply of men that drive female labor and marriage outcomes, Abramitzky et al. (2011) examine how World War I impacts the availability of men in France on the marriage market. The effect of a changed sex ratio in this context, where men were scarce or missing, was a change in marriage rates. Amongst decreases in divorce rates and in the age gap between men and women, and increases in out-of-wedlock births, men were more likely to marry while women were less likely. Charles and Luoh (2010), in the context of high male imprisonment in the U.S. for a specific ethnic group, found that the female marriage rates and the quality of male spouses decreased alongside increases in female education and labor supply. In the context of migration, Angrist (2002) studies an increase in the sex ratio and its positive effect on the female marriage rate and negative effect on female labor force participation in the United States. Most of the existing literature is set in a develop country context: we contribute to this literature with our study employing large-scale Mexican migration, where disproportionally more men leave, to understand the effect of a change in the sex ratio on subsequent outcomes in the labor and marriage market for women in a developing country. Our paper is most closely related to Raphael (2013), who using Mexican male migration, finds that a lower ratio of males in Mexico, increases the number of never married women, female educational attainment and the proportion of women employed. He does not find evidence for females marrying younger or less educated men. The main results of Raphael’s paper are on the marriage market and women’s educational attainment. Besides labor force participation, he does not explore the effects of the changing sex ratio on occupational choice or women’s type of employment, which is the focus of our paper.
In their analysis of the change in the supply of men that drive female labor and marriage outcomes, Abramitzky et al. (2011) examine how World War I impacts the availability of men in France on the marriage market. The effect of a changed sex ratio in this context, where men were scarce or missing, was a change in marriage rates. Amongst decreases in divorce rates and in the age gap between men and women, and increases in out-of-wedlock births, men were more likely to marry while women were less likely. Charles and Luoh (2010), in the context of high male imprisonment in the U.S. for a specific ethnic group, found that the female marriage rates and the quality of male spouses decreased alongside increases in female education and labor supply. In the context of migration, Angrist (2002) studies an increase in the sex ratio and its positive effect on the female marriage rate and negative effect on female labor force participation in the United States. Most of the existing literature is set in a develop country context: we contribute to this literature with our study employing large-scale Mexican migration, where disproportionally more men leave, to understand the effect of a change in the sex ratio on subsequent outcomes in the labor and marriage market for women in a developing country. Our paper is most closely related to Raphael (2013), who using Mexican male migration, finds that a lower ratio of males in Mexico, increases the number of never married women, female educational attainment and the proportion of women employed. He does not find evidence for females marrying younger or less educated men. The main results of Raphael’s paper are on the marriage market and women’s educational attainment. Besides labor force participation, he does not explore the effects of the changing sex ratio on occupational choice or women’s type of employment, which is the focus of our paper.
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