Tetyana Surotseva - Research Summary

In this paper we use gender-biased unemployment fluctuations in Spain during the Great Recession to
study the effect of spousal unemployment on wives' labour supply. We use aggregated growth
in unemployment after the onset of the crisis combined with regional vulnerability to the
employment shock to instrument for husbands' unemployment status. We
find that women strongly respond to their spouses' unemployment not only by entering the
labour market, but also by increasing their labour market attachment and decreasing fertility.
Women whose husband's lose their jobs are more likely to search for a job themselves, and
become more likely to enter full-time, long-term employment.