Mothers and sons:: Preference formation and female labor force dynamics

This paper argues that the growing presence of a new type of man-one brought up in a family in which the mother worked-has been a significant factor in the increase in female labor force participation over time. We present cross-sectional evidence showing that the wives of men whose mothers worked are themselves significantly more likely to work. We use variation in the importance of World War II as a shock to women's labor force participation-as proxied by variation in the male draft rate across U.S. states-to provide evidence in support of the intergenerational consequences of our propagation mechanism.