Previous research has largely attributed the post-war increase in female participation
in the United States labour market to growth in the real wage offered to women.
However, estimates suggest that this can only explain around half of the total increase in
female participation rates. Furthermore, Shapiro and Shaw (1983) noted that during the
1970s, labour force participation by married women continued to grow, despite a stagnant
real wage, as seen in Figure 1. More recently, Blau and Kahn (2005) presented evidence