TThe role of household workload on women’s labor market participation in Mexico: A double selection process.

Labor force participation of Mexican women has shown an accelerated and constant increase in recent decades. However, women often face limited opportunities and differentiated entry into the labor market because they need to combine work and family obligations. This paper will examine the role of the household workload, as an approach to family obligations, in a double selectivity process (the decision to work and if this job could be or not as a salaried worker) that could be present in the Mexican labor market. We use data from the National Survey of Occupation and Employment, 2009 (ENOE) a national representative sample of the women population aged 15 to 75 years old. We fit a bivariate probit model with sample selection. The results indicate that there is a double selection process in the labor market. Household workload has an important role in this process. Its effects are noticeably stronger in the labor market participation. For those women who cross the barrier imposed by household workload their participation in salaried work could be incentivized.