The impact of family structure on time use and potential wage in Switzerland Available to Purchase

Using the data of the Swiss Labour Force Survey for 1995, this paper examines the interrelations between family situation, time use and potential wage with descriptive regression equations. The resulting estimated coefficients are used to stimulate stylised biographies which illustrate the large gender‐specific differences in the impact of the family situation. With the help of these simulations, the economic consequences of family/work decisions can be concentrated in opportunity costs over the whole active life. Compared with a single woman, a married woman with two children suffers a total loss of labour market income of about 1.9 million francs. The comparison with similar studies for other countries suggests that the consequences of family decisions for women in Switzerland are especially great.