Causality of Women's Labor Force Participation and Education

Abstract

Labor force studies have confirmed that women who have more education are more likely to participate in the labor force. However, whether women work because they have more education, or women pursue education because they expect to participate in the labor force, is still at issue. In this paper, we explore whether the causality runs from employment to higher education, from education to employment, or both directions. Our findings, using the Granger and Geweke causality methods, illustrate that the percnetage of women receiving a college education increases the percentage of the labor force that is female.