Are Men's Attitudes Holding Back Fertility and Women's Careers? Evidence from Europe

Sébastien Fontenay and Libertad González

No 1506, Working Papers from Barcelona School of Economics

Abstract: We propose that men's reluctance to increase their participation in childcare and household chores is an important factor keeping both fertility and women's employment low in Europe. We first show that, over time, European women express a stronger desire for men increasing their participation in home production. This trend is not observed for men. We propose a toy model of the household that illustrates how men's refusal to contribute to childcare can have negative effects on both fertility and women's labor supply. Finally, we use cross-country panel data and a two-way fixed effects specification to show that countries where the gender divergence in attitudes is more pronounced display both lower birth-rates and lower female employment rates.

Keywords: female labor force participation; fertility; gender norms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 J16 J21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-lab
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