The compatibility between work and family life – an empirical study of second birth risks in West Germany and France

Katja Köppen
Additional contact information
Katja Köppen: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany

No WP-2004-015, MPIDR Working Papers from Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany

Abstract: In this study, we compare second birth risks in France and West Germany using data from the Family and Fertility Survey (FFS). Second birth risks in France are higher than in West Germany and we investigate whether this phenomenon relates to different institutional constraints regarding the compatibility between work and family life. Considering that education is a good indicator for higher career and income prospects, one would assume that highly educated women encounter low fertility rates in a society that makes it hard to combine both domains. Our results, however, show that second birth risks are higher for highly educated women than for women with lower education in both countries. Nevertheless, the positive effect of women’s education on second birth risks is strong and stable in the case of France only. In West Germany, the positive effect is a weak one and it weakens even further after controlling for the eduaction level of the partner. In France, the strong positive effect of women’s education on second birth risks remains unchanged, even after controlling for the partners’ characteristics and other control variables. Our conclusion is that since in France the compatibility between work and family life is relatively high, highly educated women turn their education into work opportunities and income. In West Germany, where work and family life are rather incompatible, women often have to make a decision between an employment career and motherhood as two exclusive life options. In such a situation, it is primarily the partners’ economic situation that influences fertility.

Keywords: comparative; analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J1 Z0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41 pages
Date: 2004
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hrm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/working/wp-2004-015.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2004-015

DOI: 10.4054/MPIDR-WP-2004-015

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPIDR Working Papers from Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Wilhelm ().