Female Employment and Reproductive Behavior in Taiwan, 1980

The impact of female employment on fertility preferences and behavior is examined with data from a 1980 national sample of Taiwanese women. The guiding hypothesis is that the greater the involvement of women in the impersonal market sector, the lower the fertility preferences, the longer the first birth interval, and the lower the actual fertility. Findings reveal that female employment in Taiwan is only weakly related to reproductive behavior. Even with increased participation of women in the modern market sector, female employment apparently has little impact on fertility preferences or behavior. Implications are drawn for policies aimed at lowering fertility.     

Individual and aggregate influences on the age at first birth

This study examines the role of both individual adolescent expectations of market and nonmarket income and aggregate influences on first birth timing for Blacks and Whites and for three birth cohorts of American women. Using two panels of the National Longitudinal surveys, results suggest that between-race differences in age at first birth result from differences in individual expectations about market and nonmarket income. Cohort differences in age at first birth result from relationship differences in both individual and aggregate influences, with aggregate influences differentially altering the role of individual expectations on first birth timing. These results suggest that employment policies that reduce poverty and increase wages would effectively delay childbearing. For Blacks, since early childbearing results from lower expectations about future economic success, similar fertility timing patterns between the races would result if Blacks had White employment and wage levels. Over time, these employment and wage policies will not only alter individual expectations about economic success but also will alter the impact of expectations on fertility timing.     

Labor force participation and family formation: A study of working mothers

Drawing upon a sample of 638 mothers aged 18 to 40, with at least some marital work experience, significant associations were found between the extent, kind, and timing of employment and a series of family formation variables. Generally lower fertility, longer first birth intervals, and earlier use of birth control were associated with the longest work durations, the highest status jobs, and work before the birth of the first child. The data failed, however, to differentiate desired family size.     

Unemployment,Nonstandard Employment,and Fertility: Insights From Japan’s “Lost 20 Years”

In this study, we examine relationships of unemployment and nonstandard employment with fertility. We focus on Japan, a country characterized by a prolonged economic downturn, significant increases in both unemployment and nonstandard employment, a strong link between marriage and childbearing, and pronounced gender differences in economic roles and opportunities. Analyses of retrospective employment, marriage, and fertility data for the period 1990–2006 indicate that changing employment circumstances for men are associated with lower levels of marriage, while changes in women’s employment are associated with higher levels of marital fertility. The latter association outweighs the former, and results of counterfactual standardization analyses indicate that Japan’s total fertility rate would have been 10 % to 20 % lower than the observed rate after 1995 if aggregate- and individual-level employment conditions had remained unchanged from the 1980s. We discuss the implications of these results in light of ongoing policy efforts to promote family formation and research on temporal and regional variation in men’s and women’s roles within the family.     

The impact of child care on fertility in urban Thailand

Women’s labor force participation in Thailand, particularly in the modem sector, recently has increased in conjunction with rapid declines in fertility. This paper examines whether a relationship exists between child care considerations and fertility decision making among Bangkok women. Although the two-child family has become the norm in recent years, and although most respondents said that ideally they would like to have two children, a high proportion of women surveyed said they planned to only have one child. Women’s work status and type of employment is found to strongly affect the likelihood of having a second birth: those who work at jobs that not only are low-paying but are located in a formal setting are least likely to have a second child. The type of child care for the first child also has an impact: those whose first child is in a less preferred situation are less likely to have a second. Variables measuring the need for and type of child care are found to have greater consequences for fertility than do usual measures of socioeconomic status.     

Can We Still Learn Something From the Relationship Between Fertility and Mother’s Employment? Evidence From Developing Countries

In this work, I study the impact of fertility on mothers’ employment for a sample of developing countries. Using the event of multiple births as an instrumental variable (IV) for fertility, I find that having children has a negative impact on female employment. In addition, three types of heterogeneity are found. First, the magnitude of the impact depends on the birth at which the increase in fertility takes place. Second, the types of jobs affected by a fertility shock (multiple births) are jobs identified with a higher degree of informality, such as self-employment or unpaid jobs. Finally, the heterogeneity analysis reveals that an unexpected change in fertility is stronger at a higher education level of the mother and in urban areas.     

Fertility,Employment, and Child-Care Costs

A sample of labor-market and birth histories is used to estimate the effects of child-care costs on employment and fertility decisions. A reduced-form empirical analysis is performed, which is based on hazard functions for transitions among various fertility--employment states. Higher child-care costs result in a lower birth rate for nonemployed women but not for employed women. Higher child-care costs also lead to an increase in the rate of leaving employment and a reduction in the rate of entering employment. The results suggest that potential behavioral effects of child-care subsidies could be significant and should be taken into account when alternative child-care policies are being debated.     

Education,employment, and fertility in Kinshasa and prospects for changes in reproductive behavior

This paper examines fertility behavior of women in Kinshasa, Zaire's capital city with a population of roughly four million. We look at relationships linking women's education, employment, and fertility behavior (children ever born, age at first marriage, contraception, abortion, breastfeeding, and postpartum abstinence), using data from a 1990 survey of reproductive-age women. Other things equal, there are significant differences by educational attainment and by modern sector employment in lifetime fertility and in most of the proximate determinants as well. The results suggest that modern contraception and abortion are alternative fertility control strategies in Kinshasa, with abortion appearing to play an important role in contributing to the observed fertility differentials by education and employment. The dramatic increases that have taken place in women's access to secondary and higher education are likely to reduce fertility in the future, while the effects of Zaire's current economic and political crisis are uncertain. Our findings are consistent with some of the arguments of Caldwell et al. (1992) on a new type of fertility transition in sub-Saharan Africa. If Zaire seeks to lower fertility, policy efforts should be made to soften the impact of economic crisis on school enrollments and enhance opportunities for young women to remain in school, at least well into the secondary level. Policy should also seek to promote more effective marketing and delivery of modern family planning services, so as to induce women to substitute modern contraception for abortion as a means of controlling their fertility.     

Regression analysis of the relationship between the birth rate and proportion of first order births in 1981]

Generally speaking, various fertility indicators such as the birth rate, average fertility rate, and total fertility rate have a close relationship. Various regression analyses have also been made by using different data on population statistics to describe their internal relationships. A regression analysis of the relationship between the birth rate and proportion of first order births, however, has not been made. Data collected by family planning staff at various places show that the places with a high rate of first order births normally have a lower birth rate, and the places with a low rate of first order births very often have a high birth rate. From here we may find that the proportion of the first order births is moving in two opposite directions, and there is no determined relationship between them. It is impossible to use one indicator to calculate the other's indicator. Only a regression analysis can be made to study the relationship between the two. The birth rate and proportion of first order births in 1981 showed some negative relationship, but the use of a regression equation should still be restricted. The regression equation between the birth rate and proportion of first order births may reflect a correct relationship when the region and the number of first order births are fixed. Therefore, any factor which has an impact on the number of first order births also has an influence on the use of regression equation.     

Complementarity of work and fertility among young American mothers

Abstract In this paper information about cohorts of young women in the National Longitudinal Survey of Work Experience is used to examine the extent to which women maintain a continuity of work attachment during their early years of childbearing, the years when traditionally they were most likely to withdraw from the work force. The results indicate that women who maintain closer ties to the work force immediately before and after their first birth are also more likely to be employed in 1978 - between five and ten years after their first birth - independently of intervening fertility events and other labour supply factors considered to be important predictors of work. The notion that work and fertility are increasingly becoming complementary activities for American women is supported by these data.     

Continuity of women's work,breastfeeding, and fertility in Ghana in the 1980s

Much of the inconsistency that has appeared in studies of the effect of women's work on fertility in less developed countries has been attributed to the varying accessibility of employment in the modern sector. The analysis presented in this paper shows that continuity of work matters more than sector of work. It also confirms that, even in a setting of low contraceptive prevalence, increased fecundity associated with the less intense breastfeeding practices of working women do not result in shorter birth intervals. The influence of women's work on fertility control is likely to be underestimated if the effects of sporadic versus continuous work are conflated, or if fecundity differentials by work status are unmeasured.     

Continuity of women's work,breastfeeding, and fertility in Ghana in the 1980s

Much of the inconsistency that has appeared in studies of the effect of women's work on fertility in less developed countries has been attributed to the varying accessibility of employment in the modern sector. The analysis presented in this paper shows that continuity of work matters more than sector of work. It also confirms that, even in a setting of low contraceptive prevalence, increased fecundity associated with the less intense breastfeeding practices of working women do not result in shorter birth intervals. The influence of women's work on fertility control is likely to be underestimated if the effects of sporadic versus continuous work are conflated, or if fecundity differentials by work status are unmeasured.     

Is Stepfamily Status Associated With Cohabiting and Married Women’s Fertility Behaviors?

Children from prior relationships potentially complicate fertility decision-making in new cohabitations and marriages. On the one hand, the “value of children” perspective suggests that unions with and without stepchildren have similar—and deliberate—reasons for shared childbearing. On the other hand, multipartnered fertility (MPF) research suggests that childbearing across partnerships is often unintended. Using the 2006–2010 National Survey of Family Growth and event-history models, I examine the role of stepfamily status on cohabiting and married women’s fertility and birth intendedness, with attention to union type and stepfamily configuration. Adjusting for covariates, women in stepfamily unions are more likely to have a first shared birth in a union than women in unions in which neither partner has children from past relationships, but stepfamily births are less likely to be intended than unintended. Further, this association varies by union type: married women have similar birth risks across stepfamily status, but births are less likely to be intended in marital stepfamilies. For cohabitors, women in a stepfamily are more likely to have a birth than women in nonstepfamily unions, with no differences in intendedness. Configuration (whose children and how many) also matters; for instance, women with one child from a past relationship are more likely to have a birth and to have an intended than unintended birth than women with other stepfamily configurations. It appears that children from either partner’s prior relationships influences subsequent fertility decision-making, undermining the utility of the “value of children” perspective for explaining childbearing behaviors in complex families.     

Diverging fertility among U.S. women who delay childbearing past age 30

In this paper I examine the evolving association between educational attainment and the timing of births. In the late 1970s, women with four-year college degrees had lower first birth rates before age 30 than women with less education, but rates of first births were similar for the two groups after age 30. From the 1970s to the 1990s, first birth rates decreased before age 30 for all women, but increased after age 30 only for women with four-year college degrees. Parity 2 birth rates also increased for college graduates with a first birth after age 30. These results document widening educational differences in fertility timing between 1975 and 1995, which may reflect period changes at later ages in women's work and family lives.     

Welfare state context,female labour-market attachment and childbearing in Germany and Denmark

This study investigates the role of female labour-market attachment and earnings in childbearing progressions in two very different European contexts. By applying event-history techniques to German and Danish register data during 1981–2001, we demonstrate how female earnings relate to first, second and third birth propensities. Our study shows that female earnings are positively associated with first birth fertility in Denmark, while this is not the case in West Germany. We interpret our findings based on the fact that Danish social context and policy encourage women to establish themselves in the labour market before becoming mothers, while the German institutional context during the 1980s and 1990s was not geared towards encouraging maternal employment. For higher-order births, the results are less clearcut. For Denmark we find a slightly positive correlation between female earnings and second-birth fertility, while the association is somewhat negative for third-order births. In Germany, women tend to leave the labour market when becoming mothers. Non-employed mothers have elevated second and, in particular, third-birth rates. For the group of mothers who are employed, we find only a weak association between their earnings and higher-order fertility.     

Happiness: Before and After the Kids

Understanding how having children influences parents’ subjective well-being (“happiness”) has great potential to explain fertility behavior. We study parental happiness trajectories before and after the birth of a child, using large British and German longitudinal data sets. We account for unobserved parental characteristics using fixed-effects models and study how sociodemographic factors modify the parental happiness trajectories. Consistent with existing work, we find that happiness increases in the years around the birth of a first child and then decreases to before-child levels. Moreover, happiness increases before birth, suggesting that the trajectories may capture not only the effect of the birth but also the broader process of childbearing, which may include partnership formation and quality. Sociodemographic factors strongly modify this pattern. Those who have children at older ages or who have more education have a particularly positive happiness response to a first birth; and although having the first two children increases happiness, having a third child does not. The results, which are similar in Britain and Germany, suggest that having up to two children increases happiness, and mostly for those who have postponed childbearing. This pattern is consistent with the fertility behavior that emerged during the second demographic transition and provides new insights into low and late fertility.     

Birth control,income redistribution,and the rate of saving: The case of Mexico

If different groups of people in a low-income society save at different average rates, a program of birth control may affect the aggregate rate of saving by changing the relative shares of income accruing to these groups. A model is outlined in which this process occurs. The only group that saves is profit recipients; peasants and secondary sector employees consume all their income. A decline in fertility leads to a lower demand for food and a lower price of food. This results in a lower money supply price of labor in the secondary sector, and hence greater profits and greater saving. On the other hand, a fertility decline may eventually produce a higher real standard of living among rural workers, hence a higher supply price of secondary sector labor, lower profits and lower saving. These effects are investigated in a simulation of Mexican economic growth with (a) constant high fertility and (b) a declining birth rate such as might occur if a successful national birth control program were instituted. The birth control program results in a higher rate of aggregate saving over the first several decades, and eventually a lower rate of saving once a higher standard of living has been attained.     

Cohort,age, and period effects upon the employment of white females: Evidence for 1957–1968

The net effects of birth cohort, age, and period upon the employment of white women, 1957–1968, are estimated by a regression analysis of data from the Social Security Administration’s continuous work history file. By conceptualizing period-specific effects as those associated with the business cycle, we avoid multicollinearity and succeed in performing an analysis faithful to the cohort concerns usual in fertility analysis and to the macroeconomic concerns usual in employment studies. The age pattern of employment and the pattern of intercohort employment change are examined in some detail. The long-run (cohort) trend of increasing white female employment is compared with the estimated (short-run) effects attributable to the business cycle, and it is found that, while both are significant, the former exerted a stronger effect in the 1957–1968 period.     

Employment trends ofyoung mothers and the opportunity cost of babies in the United States

The central concept of microeconomic theories of fertility is opportunity cost--the product of wife's employment lost due to childbearing and the value of her employment. This paper presents a model for analyzing opportunity cost using panel data. The average loss of employment attributable to a second- or higher-order birth, calculated at around age 2, is over 400 hours per year. This time cost represents an income loss of about $1050 in 1969 dollars. Time cost is independent of such demographic factors as birth order and age of oldest sibling. Neither does time cost depend on husband's wage rate or wife's education or potential wage rate. This indicates that many microeconomic models of fertility have been seriously misspecified. The paper also compares results from static and dynamic models, explores possible problems due to simultaneity bias, investigates the relationship between changes in employment (including time cost) and initial employment level, and identifies the difficulties of theorizing about opportunity cost.     

Economic and Institutional Context and Second Births in Seven European Countries

The extent to which mothers progress to a second child varies greatly between European countries. Although both institutional and economic context are believed to be partly responsible for these differences, available research on economic conditions and fertility mostly focuses on first births and studies on family policy and fertility have hitherto insufficiently addressed population heterogeneity. Combining longitudinal microdata from the Harmonized Histories with contextual data on labour market uncertainty and family policy, this paper uses discrete-time hazard models to analyse the impact of economic and institutional context on second birth hazards of 22,298 women in 7 European countries between 1970 and 2002. Particular attention is paid to variation in the contextual effects by level of education. We find that aggregate-level unemployment and temporary employment reduce second birth hazards, particularly for low- and medium-level educated women. Family policies are positively related to second birth hazards. Whereas family allowances stimulate second births particularly among low educated mothers, the positive effect of childcare is invariant by level of education.