Did the association between fertility and female employment within OECD countries really change its sign?

Tomas Kögel

Journal of Population Economics, 2004, vol. 17, issue 1, 45-65

Abstract: Recent literature finds that in OECD countries the cross-country correlation between the total fertility rate and the female labor force participation rate, which until the beginning of the 1980s had a negative value, has since acquired a positive value. This result is (explicitly or implicitly) often interpreted as evidence for a changing sign in the time-series association between fertility and female employment within OECD countries. This paper shows that the time-series association between fertility and female employment does not demonstrate a change in sign. Instead, the reversal in the sign of the cross-country correlation is most likely due to a combination of two elements: First, the presence of unmeasured country-specific factors and, second, country-heterogeneity in the magnitude of the negative time-series association between fertility and female employment. However, the paper does find evidence for a reduction in the negative time-series association between fertility and female employment after about 1985. Copyright Springer-Verlag 2004

Keywords: J10; J11; J13; Total fertility rate; female labor force participation rate; econometrics of panel data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (88)

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DOI: 10.1007/s00148-003-0180-z

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