Volume 8, Number 3 (Summer) 1973
Mattila, J. Peter. 1973. "The Effect of Extending Minimum Wages to Cover Household Maids." Journal of Human Resources 8(3):365-382.
Recent federal legislation has proposed that minimum wage laws be extended to cover one of the largest occupational groups currently excluded-household maids. This paper estimates supply and demand functions for maids using cross-section data. The results strongly suggest that households are very quick to find substitutes as the relative cost of their maids rises. Demand for maids would have declined by over 30 percent if a minimum wage of $1.60 had been enforced in 1972. Historical trends in the occupation are consistent with the cross-section analysis.
The author is Assistant Professor of Economics, Iowa State University. I am grateful to the Manpower Administration, U.S. Department of Labor, for research grant support and to many former colleagues at The Ohio State University for the helpful suggestions. I am solely responsible, of course, for the contents, opinions, and any errors of the paper. The material in the project was prepared under Grant No. 91-39-71-44 from the Manpower Administration, U.S. Department of Labor, under the authority of Title I of the Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962, as amended. Researchers undertaking such projects under government sponsorship are encouraged to express freely their professional judgments. Therefore, points of view or opinions state in this paper do not necessarily represent the official position of policy of the Department of Labor.
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