Structural Labour Market Change, Cognitive Work, and Fertility in Germany

Honorata Bogusz, Anna Matysiak and Michaela Kreyenfeld
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Michaela Kreyenfeld: Hertie School

No 2023-08, Working Papers from Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw

Abstract: Technological change and globalisation have been transforming the structure of labour demand in favour of workers performing cognitive tasks. Even though past research has found that labour force participation is an important determinant of fertility behaviour, few studies have addressed the fertility effects of the long-term structural changes of labour market. To fill this gap, we measure the cognitive task content of work at the occupation level using data from the Employment Survey of the German Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BiBB). We link this contextual information with employment and fertility histories of women and men from the German Socio-Economic Panel 1984-2018 (GSOEP). With event history models, we find that fertility transitions of men working in occupations characterised by high cognitive task intensity are accelerated. We also observe elevated birth risks among women in occupations requiring cognitive labour. However, this pattern is more ambiguous, as we find that non-working women also experience elevated birth rates.

Keywords: structural labour market change; cognitive work; task content of work; fertility; Germany (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J01 J11 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 47 pages
Date: 2023
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-eur, nep-lab and nep-neu
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https://www.wne.uw.edu.pl/download_file/2651/0 First version, 2023 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:war:wpaper:2023-08

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