The causal effects of the number of children on female employment-do European institutional and gender conditions matter?

Anna Baranowska-Rataj () and Anna Matysiak

No 64, Working Papers from Institute of Statistics and Demography, Warsaw School of Economics

Abstract: This paper contributes to the discussion on the effects of the number of children on female employment in Europe. Previous research has usually either (1) compared these effects across countries assuming exogeneity of family size or (2) used methods which deal with endogeneity of family size but focused on single countries. We combine these two approaches by taking a cross-country comparative perspective and applying quasi-experimental methods. We use instrumental variable models, with multiple births as instruments, and the harmonized data from the European Survey on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC). We first examine the cross-country variation in the effects of family size on maternal employment across the groups of European countries with similar welfare state regimes. Next, to measure the impact of welfare state regimes in a more precise way, we implement the Index for the Conditions of Work and Family Reconciliation, i.e. a synthetic indicator that captures the impact of family policies, social norms and labour market conditions. This step gives us an opportunity to investigate whether the revealed cross-country differences in the magnitude of the effect of the family size on maternal employment can be attributed to the diversity of European institutional arrangements as well as cultural and structural conditions for combining employment and family duties.

Keywords: family size effects; reconciliation of work and parenthood; female labour supply (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 J18 J21 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-eur and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The Causal Effects of the Number of Children on Female Employment - Do European Institutional and Gender Conditions Matter? (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:isd:wpaper:64

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