On the changing correlation between fertility and female employment over space and time: a pooled time-series analysis on the impact of social indicators

Abstract

"In OECD countries, the cross-country correlation between the total fertility rate and the female labour force participation rate turned from a negative value before the 1980s to a positive value thereafter. Based on pooled time-series analysis, the literature seems to agree that this change is due to unmeasured country and time heterogeneity with respect to female employment. However, the determinants of this heterogeneity remain unclear. Using data of 16 European countries from 1960-2005, the author estimates pooled time-series models of fertility and female labor force participation by applying Prais-Winsten regressions with fixed country and time effects and investigate the changing effect of female labor participation for a set of labor market, educational and demographic variables and indicators of social policy. The empirical findings reveal that the change in the correlation seems to be due to the increasing proportion of females employed part-time, increasing educational attainment of females, increasing age at first birth and increasing gross enrollment ratio of children in pre-primary education." (author's abstract)