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Delayed First Birth and New Mothers’ Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from Biological Fertility Shocks

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  • Massimiliano Bratti
  • Laura Cavalli

Abstract

We investigate the impact of delaying the first birth on Italian mothers’ labor market outcomes around childbirth. The effect of postponing motherhood is identified using biological fertility shocks; namely, the occurrence of miscarriages and stillbirths. Focusing on mothers’ behavior around the first birth, our study is able to isolate the effect of motherhood postponement from that of total fertility. Our estimates suggest that delaying the first birth by 1 year raises the likelihood of participating in the labor market by 1.2 % points and weekly working time by about half an hour, while we do not find any evidence that late motherhood prevents worsening of new mothers’ job conditions (the so-called “mommy track”). Our findings are robust to a number of sensitivity checks, among which are controls for partners’ characteristics and a proxy for maternal health status. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

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  • Massimiliano Bratti & Laura Cavalli, 2014. "Delayed First Birth and New Mothers’ Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from Biological Fertility Shocks," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 30(1), pages 35-63, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:eurpop:v:30:y:2014:i:1:p:35-63
    DOI: 10.1007/s10680-013-9301-x
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    4. Demir, Firat & Ghosh, Pallab & Liu, Zexuan, 2020. "Effects of motherhood timing, breastmilk substitutes and education on the duration of breastfeeding: Evidence from Egypt," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
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    6. Chen, Yi & Zhao, Yi, 2022. "The timing of first marriage and subsequent life outcomes: Evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 713-731.
    7. Simen Markussen & Marte Strøm, 2022. "Children and labor market outcomes: separating the effects of the first three children," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(1), pages 135-167, January.
    8. Matteo Picchio & Claudia Pigini & Stefano Staffolani & Alina Verashchagina, 2021. "If not now, when? The timing of childbirth and labor market outcomes," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(6), pages 663-685, September.
    9. Bhalotra, Sonia & Clarke, Damian & Walther, Selma, 2022. "Women's Careers and Family Formation," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1120, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    10. Massimiliano Bratti & Elena Claudia Meroni & Chiara Pronzato, 2017. "Motherhood Postponement and Wages in Europe," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 15(02), pages 31-37, August.
    11. Voit, Falk A. C., 2023. "Adverse birth outcomes and parental labor market participation after birth," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-710, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
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    13. Massimiliano Bratti, 2023. "Fertility postponement and labor market outcomes," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 117-117, January.
    14. Markussen, Simen & Strøm, Marte, 2015. "The Effects of Motherhood," Memorandum 19/2015, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    15. Steinhauer, Andreas & Bíró, Anikó & Dieterle, Steven, 2019. "Motherhood Timing and the Child Penalty: Bounding the Returns to Delay," CEPR Discussion Papers 13732, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Pan, Zheng & Jiang, Xiandeng & Zhao, Ningru, 2021. "Does birth spacing affect female labor market participation? Evidence from urban China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    17. Tom Kleinepier & Helga de Valk, 2016. "Ethnic differences in family trajectories of young adult women in the Netherlands: Timing and sequencing of events," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 35(24), pages 671-710.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Delayed first birth; Fertility shocks; Italy; Labor market; New mothers;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

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