Choosing children over career? Changes in the postpartum labor force behavior of professional women

In recent years, the popular press in the U.S. hasrepeatedly profiled professionalwomen who have elected to leave the labor force inorder to devote their full-timeenergies to child rearing. The conclusion of thesearticles is often that mothers havetired of trying to be superwomen and have decidedthat high achievement in thelabor force is not compatible with a successful homelife. The purpose of this paperis to explore whether this impression is, in fact,based in truth. Using a sample ofprofessional women drawn from the PSID during theyears 1968–1992, we estimatethe probability of withdrawing from the labor forceat one, two and five year intervalsafter the birth of a child. We use several differentmeasures of labor force withdrawaland find that women who gave birth in recent years aremore likely to report zero hoursof work two years after the birth of a child when comparedto women who gave birthearlier in the sample period. Thus, we find some supportfor the conjecture that moreprofessional women are opting to stay home and raisechildren in lieu of aggressivelypursuing their careers. We do not find any differencesby cohort, indicating that thisphenomenon cuts across women of all childbearingages. However, our results are notrobust across different measures of labor forcewithdrawal, nor are they consistent acrosspostpartum time intervals.     

Does the availability of child care influence the employment of mothers? Findings from western Germany

There is a vast empirical literature investigating the effects of child care costson female employment. Day-care costs are usually treated as a reduction infemale wages and are supposed to reduce a woman's propensity to participatein the labor market. In this paper we argue that an analysis of the effects ofchild care on the employment of mothers in Germany should focus on theavailability rather than the affordability of care, due to peculiarities of theGerman day-care regime. Our empirical findings cast doubt on the effectivenessof the current German day-care regime. Specifically, we question the extent towhich it enables mothers to participate in the labor market.     

The mismatch between employment and child care in Italy: the impact of rationing

In Italy the women’s participation is among the lowest in Europe. The female employment rate stands almost 13 percentage points below the EU average and 22 below the Lisbon target. One of the most important reasons is related to the characteristics of child care system. We analyze the characteristics of the child care system in Italy and its relationship to the labor market participation decision of mothers. The two decisions are jointly considered in a discrete choice framework, which also allows for simple forms of rationing. We go on to estimate a bivariate probit model of the child care and employment decisions and find evidence that rationing is an important factor in interpreting price effects on utilization rates and employment decisions. Responsible editors: Deborah Cobb-Clark & Tito Boeri     

Child labor and the division of labor in the early English cotton mills

The share of children employed in English cotton factories fell significantly before the introduction of effective child labor legislation in the early 1830s. The early factories employed predominantly children because adults without factory experience were relatively unproductive factory workers. The subsequent growth of the cotton industry fostered the development of a labor market for productive adult factory workers. This effect helps account for the shift toward adults in the cotton factory workforce. JEL classification: J13, N33, O14 Received November 3, 1995/Accepted September 20, 1996     

儿童照料、劳动参与和中国已婚男女身心健康——基于城镇居民和外来务工人员的对比研究

本研究采用2008年国家统计局针对城镇居民和外来务工人员进行的调查数据,研究劳动参与、儿童照料双重责任对于城镇和移民已婚男女身心健康的影响。研究结果表明：在承担工作和儿童照料双重责任过程中城镇已婚男女几乎不存在性别差异,只工作就会增加其精神压力,工作、并且家中有7—12岁儿童对女性精神压力的边际影响最大,而男性则是工作、并且家中有0-6岁儿童对其影响最大：外来务工人员在承担工作和儿童照料双重责任过程中仍存在引人注目的性别差异,妇女仍然是儿童照料责任的主承担者,参与市场劳动并未减少其家庭责任。     

Child care, women's employment, and child outcomes

This paper reviews the evidence on the impact of child care and maternal employment in the pre-school years on child outcomes. This topic has long been of interest to economists, developmental psychologists, and scholars from other disciplines, and has been the focus of increased attention in recent years, as research has provided additional evidence about the processes of development in the earliest days, weeks, and years of life.¹  In this paper, I review the evidence on two broad sets of questions: what we know about the potential benefits of early intervention child care programs, and what we know about the effects (whether positive or negative) of maternal employment and child care in the first years of life. The evidence reviewed in this paper suggests that we now know a good deal about both sets of questions. But, this review also suggests that there are important gaps in our knowledge that future work by economists could fruitfully address. Received: 9 December 1999/Accepted: 20 September 2000     

Child care subsidies and the employment of welfare recipients

Changing patterns of maternal employment, coupled with stronger work requirements for welfare recipients, are increasing the demand for child care. For many families, the cost of child care creates a financial burden; for mothers with low incomes and those who are former welfare recipients, these costs may be an insurmountable barrier to employment or economic self-sufficiency. Despite increased public spending in this area, the receipt of any child care subsidy appears to be a relatively rare and uncertain event. In this study, we use data from a sample of low-income single mothers (current and recent welfare recipients in California) to estimate the probability of their receiving child care subsidies and the effect of this probability on labor market activity.     

退休年龄对劳动参与率的影响

自1951年以来。中国的退休政策并未随着平均寿命、经济发展等情况的变化做出大的改变。每年有成千上万的老年劳动者,在其仍有劳动意愿和劳动能力的情况下,因为政策的规定离开工作岗位。过低的退休年龄使得我国的劳动参与率被潜在的低估,如果调整现行退休政策,将修正劳动参与率、减少“人口负债”期问题、缓解未来养老金收支失衡压力和挤压劳动力市场。     

吉林省劳动就业的现状分析与展望

改革开放以来 ,吉林省的就业速度明显慢于经济发展速度。劳动力数量多 ,就业岗位有限。在未来 1 0年 ,就业状况仍不容乐观。解决这一问题应当从三个方面着手。一是加大吉林省内的产业结构调整力度 ,二是加强与西部各省份的交流 ,三是加强与周边国家的合作。     

A dynamic analysis of turnover in employment and child care

The causes of turnover in child-care arrangements and maternal employment are analyzed using panel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, supplemented with state-level information on child-care markets. The results indicate that turnover in child care is quite high and that child and family characteristics help explain turnover. Important factors include the mother’s wage, the cost of child care, age of the child, and previous child-care decisions. The reduced-form nature of the analysis makes it difficult to determine whether these factors are important because they are associated with unstable child-care supply or because they affect family decisions, conditional on supply factors. The results provide no direct evidence that child-care turnover is higher in states with more unstable child-care markets.     

Gendering fertility: Second births in Sweden and Hungary

With the growing prevalence of the dual-earner family model in industrialized countries the gendered nature of the relationship between employment and parenting has become a key issue for childbearing decisions and behavior. In such a context taking into account the societal gender structure (public policies, family-level gender relations) explicitly can enhance our understanding of contemporary fertility trends. In this paper we study the second birth, given its increasing importance in the developed world as large proportions of women remain childless or bear only one child. We focus on Sweden where gender equality is pronounced at both the societal and the family level and on Hungary where the dual-earner model has been accompanied by traditional gender relations in the home sphere. Our analysis is based on data extracted from the Swedish and Hungarian Fertility and Family Surveys of 1992/93. We use the method of hazard regression. The results suggest that the second-birth intensity increases as the combination of parenthood and labor-force attachment of either parent is facilitated. We see this in the effect of family policies in Sweden and in the higher second-birth intensity of couples who share family responsibilities as compared to those with traditional gender-role behavior in both countries. Also, the lack of any visible impact of men's educational attainment in both Sweden and Hungary is probably linked to public policies as state support for families with children has reduced the importance of income for second childbearing. A positive educational gradient for Swedish women and an essentially zero gradient in Hungary reflects the success of policy measures in reducing fertility cost for more educated women in both countries.     

吉林省城镇就业、失业和劳动参与的现状和对策

依据劳动经济理论,应用吉林省的微观数据,从劳动力的人口特征、受教育程度特征、户籍特征和地区差异等角度,研究吉林省失业率、就业率和劳动参与率的现状。针对吉林省城镇劳动就业中存在的问题,提出树立就业优先、发展新兴产业与第三产业、促进中小企业发展、健全劳动力市场体系和健全失业保险制度的政策建议。     

Child labor versus educational attainment: some evidence from Latin America

The paper addresses the issue of child labor in relation to the educational attainment of working children. The empirical analysis is based on household surveys in Bolivia and Venezuela. It was found that labor force participation is non-trivial among those below the legal working age or supposed to be in school. Working children contribute significantly to total household income. The fact that a child is working reduces his or her educational attainment by about 2 years of schooling relative to the control group of non-working children. Grade repetition, a common phenomenon in Latin America, is closely associated with child labor. JEL classification: J13, J21, I21 Received May 2, 1996/Accepted August 14, 1996     

Female Employment and Divorce: Taking Into Account a Social Multiplier

A model of interactions of marriage and labor markets, taking into account a feedback process from aggregate divorce rates on individuals' decisions, explains why small changes in men's attitudes towards sharing the breadwinner role with their wives may change female labor force participation rates and divorce rates considerably.     

State regulations and child care choice

While government regulations are designed to safeguard the health and well-being of children, they may also alter the cost and availability of child care, thus affecting parental use of such services. This paper investigates the total effects of regulation on parental choice of child care and the indirect effects of regulation through the price, quality, and availability of care. In our analysis of data from the National Child Care Survey 1990 we find strong evidence that state regulations requiring center-based providers to be trained are associated with a lower probability that parents choose a center, while state inspections are associated with more parental choice of center and home care. We end by discussing the policy implications of our findings.     

秘鲁城市女性劳动参与的微观研究

本文利用2001年秘鲁国家统计和信息局第三期家庭抽样调查数据,运用Logistic回归,分析了在秘鲁城市中,人口、经济和教育变量是如何影响女性劳动参与的.并且将首都利马和利马以外的其他地区加以区分来进行分析。研究结果表明在秘鲁城市范围内.女性劳动参与随着女性生命周期的变化出现了很明确的模式;生育、婚姻状况、与家长的关系、接受高等教育(指硕士及以上和培训)明显地影响女性劳动参与。在首都利马和其他地区的大部分影响方向很类似。但是在首都利马的影响程度要大一些。     

Links between labor supply and unemployment: theory and empirics

A flow model of labor market participation is used to describe how various exogenous variations jointly affect unemployment and participation and provides short-run identification restrictions of a structural VAR. In some countries, fast rising female participation may have had a moderate short- and medium-run impact on unemployment rates. A variance decomposition exercise indicates that, in Continental Europe, participation is driven in the short run by unemployment shocks, whereas in the USA, it is driven by participation shocks (demography, immigration). Unemployment in Europe is driven by participation shocks, whereas in the USA, it is driven by unemployment shocks.      

Aging Children and Their Older Parents: The Coming Generation of Caregiving

ABSTRACT

This study uses a data set of older children and their older parents to examine caregiving relationships. Using the 1993 Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the 1993 Health Care Burden file, we examine help given by children to their parents. We distinguish between daughters who are household heads and daughters who are wives. We find parents receive substantially more care from daughters than from sons. The caregiving role of daughters who are household heads differs notably from that of wives. An analysis of caregiving, employment, and housework shows that children who are caregivers devote more combined hours to these activities than children who do not provide care.     

Combining employment and parenthood: A longitudinal study of intentions of Dutch young adults

This paper examines the intentions of Dutch males and females with regard to combining paid employment and parenthood. Four models of how couples combine these roles are distinguished. Panel data from a representative survey among Dutch young adults show that the traditional model (the female takes care of the children and the male works full-time) is becoming less popular, whereas the supplementary model (the female takes care of the children and supplements the labor force participation of the male), and the egalitarian model (both partners share paid labor more or less equally) are becoming more popular. The no-child model is preferred by about 10% of the respondents. A multivariate analysis shows that both job characteristics, like the flexibility of working hours, and gender role attitudes are important predictors of intentions with regard to combining family and work roles.     

劳动力迁移过程中的农村留守老人照料问题研究

随着大量农村劳动力人口的外出务工,农村留守老人照料问题日益突出,2004年7月中国人民大学老年学研究所组织了大型“农村流出人口对老年人生活影响”的调查,以此为基础,探讨农村青年劳动力人口外流对农村老年人生活照料的影响。一方面照料提供者的减少,农业劳动、家务劳动等负担的增加加剧了农村留守老人的健康和日常生活照料问题;另一方面社会照料网络如农村基层组织、农村社区、志愿者等为留守老人提供的照料体系还不完善。随着社会的发展,社会网络对老年人提供的照料必将发挥越来越大的作用。我们不能因为农村劳动力外流弱化了家庭照料老人的功能而忽略了其对社会照料体系构建的作用。