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Female Employment reduces Fertility in Rural Senegal

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  • Van den Broeck, Goedele
  • Maertens, Miet

Abstract

The recent horticultural export boom in Senegal has created new off-farm wage employment opportunities for the rural population, especially for women. We hypothesise that female wage employment may lower fertility rates through an income effect, an empowerment effect and a substitution effect, and address this question empirically using household survey data and two different regression techniques (a Difference-in-Differences estimator and an Instrumental Variable approach). We find that besides education, female employment has a significant negative effect on fertility rates. Reducing fertility rates is considered as a prerequisite for reaching the MDGs, and our finding implies that the horticultural export boom and associated employment may indirectly contribute to this.

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  • Van den Broeck, Goedele & Maertens, Miet, 2015. "Female Employment reduces Fertility in Rural Senegal," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 212206, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:iaae15:212206
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.212206
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    1. Goedele Van den Broeck & Miet Maertens, 2015. "Female Employment Reduces Fertility in Rural Senegal," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(3), pages 1-15, March.
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    Cited by:

    1. Lara Cockx, 2022. "Moving toward a Better Future? Migration and Children’s Health and Education," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 70(3), pages 1229-1293.
    2. Zhanhui Fu & Hongqiang Jiang & Jiajun Qiao & Xiaojun Jiang & Weichun He, 2023. "Gender Differences in Migrant Workers’ Wages and Their Influencing Factors in the Central Hilly Regions of China," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-16, July.
    3. Goedele Van den Broeck & Kaat Van Hoyweghen & Miet Maertens, 2016. "Employment Conditions in the Senegalese Horticultural Export Industry: A Worker Perspective," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 34(2), pages 301-319, March.
    4. VAN DEN BROECK, Goedele & MAERTENS, Miet, 2016. "Moving Up or Moving Out? Insights on Rural Development and Poverty Reduction in Senegal," Working Papers 242367, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Centre for Agricultural and Food Economics.
    5. Yu, Haiyue & Cao, Jin & Kang, Shulong, 2021. "Who cares: Deciphering China's female employment paradox," BOFIT Discussion Papers 7/2021, Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies (BOFIT).
    6. John C. Beghin & Miet Maertens & Johan Swinnen, 2017. "Nontariff Measures and Standards in Trade and Global Value Chains," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: John Christopher Beghin (ed.), Nontariff Measures and International Trade, chapter 2, pages 13-38, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    7. Van Den Broeck, G & Van Hoyweghen, K & Maertens, M, 2017. "Horticultural exports and food security in Senegal," Working Papers 258322, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Centre for Agricultural and Food Economics.
    8. Fabry, Anna & Van den Broeck, Goedele & Maertens, Miet, 2022. "Decent work in global food value chains: Evidence from Senegal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    9. Shreya Biswas, 2021. "She Innovates- Female owner and firm innovation in India," Papers 2109.09515, arXiv.org.
    10. Chari, A.V. & Glick, Peter & Okeke, Edward & Srinivasan, Sinduja V., 2019. "Workfare and infant health: Evidence from India's public works program," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 116-134.
    11. Melaku, Astewale Bimr & Debela, Bethelhem Legesse & Qaim, Matin, 2023. "Women’s employment in high-value agriculture and child nutrition: Evidence from the Ethiopian cut-flower industry," 2023 Annual Meeting, July 23-25, Washington D.C. 335848, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    12. Frank Götmark & Malte Andersson, 2023. "Achieving sustainable population: Fertility decline in many developing countries follows modern contraception, not economic growth," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(3), pages 1606-1617, June.
    13. Zheng Shen & Xiaodong Zheng & Hualei Yang, 2020. "The fertility effects of public pension: Evidence from the new rural pension scheme in China," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(6), pages 1-17, June.
    14. Annalisa Zezza & Federica Demaria & Maria Rosaria Pupo d'Andrea & Jo Swinnen & Giulia Meloni & Senne Vandevelde & Alessandro Olper & Daniele Curzi & Valentina Raimondi & Sophie Drogue, 2018. "Research for AGRI Committee - Agricultural trade: assessing reciprocity of standards," Working Papers hal-02787948, HAL.
    15. repec:zbw:bofitp:2021_007 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Jana Schwarz & Monica Schuster & Bernd Annaert & Miet Maertens & Erik Mathijs, 2016. "Sustainability of Global and Local Food Value Chains: An Empirical Comparison of Peruvian and Belgian Asparagus," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-22, April.
    17. Sandra Kristine Halvorsen, 2021. "Labour turnover and workers' well-being in the Ethiopian manufacturing industry," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-36, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    18. Yu, Haiyue & Cao, Jin & Kang, Shulong, 2021. "Who cares : Deciphering China’s female employment paradox," BOFIT Discussion Papers 7/2021, Bank of Finland, Institute for Economies in Transition.
    19. Kaat Van Hoyweghen & Janne Bemelmans & Hendrik Feyaerts & Goedele Van den Broeck & Miet Maertens, 2023. "Small Family, Happy Family? Fertility Preferences and the Quantity–Quality Trade-Off in Sub-Saharan Africa," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 42(6), pages 1-35, December.
    20. Aduralere Opeyemi Oyelade & Onome Bright Oghenetega & Favour Eforuoku, 2020. "Labour Force Participation Rate and it Implications on Food Security, Fertility Rate and Economic Growth in West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) Countries," Business & Management Compass, University of Economics Varna, issue 4, pages 444-458.
    21. Zheng Shen & Derek S. Brown & Xiaodong Zheng & Hualei Yang, 2022. "Women’s Off-Farm Work Participation and Son Preference in Rural China," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 41(3), pages 899-928, June.
    22. Goedele Van den Broeck & Miet Maertens, 2015. "Female Employment Reduces Fertility in Rural Senegal," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(3), pages 1-15, March.
    23. Shelley Clark & Caroline W. Kabiru & Sonia Laszlo & Stella Muthuri, 2019. "The Impact of Childcare on Poor Urban Women’s Economic Empowerment in Africa," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(4), pages 1247-1272, August.
    24. VAN DEN BROECK, Goedele & MAERTENS, Miet, 2015. "Does Off-farm Employment Make Women in Rural Senegal Happy?," Working Papers 232593, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Centre for Agricultural and Food Economics.
    25. Dalomi Bahan & Latif Dramani, 2019. "Socioeconomic Status and Fertility Decline in Burkina Faso, 2003-2015," Applied Economics and Finance, Redfame publishing, vol. 6(2), pages 56-70, March.

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