In the last couple of decades, and in particular during the last couple of administrations,
the Mexican government has implemented various social programs targeted
speciÖcally to women, such as PROGRESA/Oportunidades, a child care program, and
a gender equality program (PROIGUALDAD). The impact that those programs may
have on the work behavior of women largely depends on the form that the female labor
supply takes, and in particular, on the labor supply elasticities with respect to own
wages, and the husbandís wages. Despite this fact, the literature on female labor
supply in Mexico is very scarce. To our knowledge, there is no estimate of the female
labor supply elasticities at the national level. This paper Ölls in this gap in the literature.
Using data from the 1990 and 2000 Mexican Census of Population, we estimate a
structural model of labor supply through an application of Wooldridgeís (2002) threestep
procedure. We Önd that the female labor supply elasticities had a rather sharp
decrease between 1990 and 2000, which suggests that women are getting increasingly
attached to the labor market. We also Önd evidence of heterogenous e§ects for women
with young children and women of di§erent cohorts. Even though female are now
less responsive to changes in wages, the elasticities that we Önd are still large enough
so that social programs aimed at modifying femalesíwork behavior through incentives
might still be very successful.