ALLOCATION INFLEXIBILITIES, FEMALE LABOR SUPPLY, AND HOUSING ASSETS ACCUMULATION - ARE WOMEN WORKING TO PAY THE MORTGAGE

This article uses data from the 1986 Canadian Family Expenditures Surv ey to estimate a life-cycle-consistent model of household labor supply and commodity demand that incorporates a mortgage qualification const raint based on earnings. Both the parametric and nonparametric implica tions of the model suggest that the labor supply of a nontrivial perce ntage of married women is constrained by mortgage commitments. The res ults of generalized selectivity models of female labor force participa tion and labor supply show that the positive effect of a high debt ser vice ratio exceeds the negative effect of young children.