The End of an Era. The Vanishing Negative Effect of Women's Employment on Fertility

Anna Matysiak () and Daniele Vignoli ()
Additional contact information
Anna Matysiak: University of Warsaw, https://www.annamatysiak.com/
Daniele Vignoli: Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni "G. Parenti", Universita' di Firenze, https://danielevignoli.com/

No 2025_02, Econometrics Working Papers Archive from Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni "G. Parenti"

Abstract: This paper addresses whether women's employment in the 21st century remains a barrier to family formation, as it was in the 1980s and 1990s, or—similar to men's—it has become a prerequisite for childbearing. We address this question through a systematic quantitative review (meta-analysis) of empirical studies conducted in Europe, North America and Australia. We selected 94 studies published between 1990-2023 (N=572 effect sizes). Our analysis uncovers a fundamental shift in the relationship between women's employment and fertility. What was once a strongly negative association has become statistically insignificant in the 2000s and 2010s—and even turned positive in the Nordic countries and parts of Western Europe (France, Belgium, and the Netherlands). This shift is evident both among childless women and mothers and has occurred across all analyzed country clusters, except in the German/Southern European group, where the relationship has remained negative. These findings challenge longstanding assumptions about work-family trade-offs and suggest a reconfiguration of the economic and social conditions underpinning fertility decisions in contemporary high-income societies. The paper calls for a reconceptualization of the employment-fertility relationship and development of a new theoretical framework that better captures these evolving dynamics in contemporary high-income societies.

Keywords: Women's employment; Fertility; High-income countries; Meta-analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J01 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2025-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-his and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://labdisia.disia.unifi.it/wp_disia/2025/wp_disia_2025_02.pdf First version, 2025-04 (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:fir:econom:wp2025_02

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Econometrics Working Papers Archive from Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni "G. Parenti" Viale G.B. Morgagni, 59 - I-50134 Firenze - Italy. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Fabrizio Cipollini ().