Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Do time use patterns influence fertility decisions? A cross-national inquiry

Contents:

Author Info

  • Lyn Craig

    () (Social Policy Research Centre, G2, Western Campus, University of New South Wales, Kensington, Sydney)

Registered author(s):

    Abstract

    Birth rates are falling throughout the western world. There is no definitive answer as to why this is so. This paper investigates whether time use analysis could offer a useful perspective. It explores the way parenthood affects time allocation in four countries with different work-family policies, using data from the Multinational Time Use Survey (MTUS) World 5 series to compare the impact of children on adult time in Italy, Germany, Norway and Australia. It considers whether fertility decisions may be influenced by i) the gap between parents and nonparents in total paid and unpaid work undertaken, ii) how paid and unpaid work is divided between mothers and fathers, and iii) the proportion of total male and female work time that is paid before and after parenthood, and conducts multivariate analysis to isolate the effects of nationality, sex and parenthood. The study is very preliminary, but the results suggest that domestic gender inequity and low female workforce participation are associated with lower fertility and may affect parity progression. Further research using more extensive and detailed time use analysis could make an important contribution to understanding of fertility decline.

    Download Info

    If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
    File URL: http://ffb.uni-lueneburg.de/eijtur/pdf/volumes/eIJTUR-3-1.pdf#page=61
    Download Restriction: no

    Bibliographic Info

    Article provided by Research Institute on Professions (Forschungsinstitut Freie Berufe (FFB)) and The International Association for Time Use Research (IATUR) in its journal electronic International Journal of Time Use Research.

    Volume (Year): 3 (2006)
    Issue (Month): 1 (August)
    Pages: 60-87

    as in new window
    Handle: RePEc:leu:journl:2006:vol3:p60-87

    Contact details of provider:
    Web page: http://ffb.uni-lueneburg.de/repec/leu/
    More information through EDIRC

    Related research

    Keywords: time use; children; fertility decline; gender; work-family; comparative policy analysis;

    Find related papers by JEL classification:

    References

    No references listed on IDEAS
    You can help add them by filling out this form.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as in new window

    Cited by:
    1. Daniela Del Boca & Marilena Locatelli, 2006. "The Determinants of Motherhood and Work Status: a Survey," CHILD Working Papers wp15_06, CHILD - Centre for Household, Income, Labour and Demographic economics - ITALY.

    Lists

    This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:leu:journl:2006:vol3:p60-87

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Joachim Merz).

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

    If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.