Economic-demographic Determinants of Labour Supply in Latin America: Some Preliminary Findings

Studies on labour supply in Latin America have almost all been fundamentally demographic in their approach. Their primary purpose has been to determine the size of the labour force, based on changes in the working age population, by age and sex groups and on patterns of the specific participation rates of these groups. See, for example, Elizaga (1971) and Durand (1975). Little attention has been given to such other aspects of supply as the number of hours worked per week and the number of weeks worked per year; and the situations of unemployment and underemployment have been similarly disregarded. These studies have been mainly descriptive.2