IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/ijlaec/v62y2019i2d10.1007_s41027-019-00170-z.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does Fertility Affect Female Labour Participation Differently in Malaysia and Singapore?

Author

Listed:
  • Waliu Olawale Shittu

    (Universiti Utara Malaysia)

  • Norehan Abdullah

    (Universiti Utara Malaysia)

  • Habiba Muhammed Bello Umar

    (Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University)

Abstract

The study examines the relationship between fertility and female labour participation, as a comparative analysis between Malaysia and Singapore—being two countries with relatively robust economies in Southeast Asia. The study covers the period from 1985 to 2015 as a basis for comparison between the countries. The ADF test of unit root and ARDL Bounds test were employed in examining the stationarity properties and long-run relationship among the chosen variables, while also addressing any possible endogeneity. The study equally employs the Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS) regression in addressing the possible simultaneity problem which may arise in the coefficient estimation, while the Granger causality test was used to observe the direction of causation among the variables. The findings in each of the countries indicate that there is a negative relationship between fertility and female labour participation, with causality running from female labour participation through fertility, hence upholding the Role Incompatibility Hypothesis. Therefore, the answer to our topic question is in dissident: that the effect of fertility on female labour participation is the same in the two countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Waliu Olawale Shittu & Norehan Abdullah & Habiba Muhammed Bello Umar, 2019. "Does Fertility Affect Female Labour Participation Differently in Malaysia and Singapore?," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 62(2), pages 201-217, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:ijlaec:v:62:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1007_s41027-019-00170-z
    DOI: 10.1007/s41027-019-00170-z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s41027-019-00170-z
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s41027-019-00170-z?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gary S. Becker & Kevin M. Murphy & Robert Tamura, 1994. "Human Capital, Fertility, and Economic Growth," NBER Chapters, in: Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education, Third Edition, pages 323-350, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Azmat, Ghazala & González, Libertad, 2010. "Targeting fertility and female participation through the income tax," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 487-502, June.
    3. Gary S. Becker & H. Gregg Lewis, 1974. "Interaction between Quantity and Quality of Children," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of the Family: Marriage, Children, and Human Capital, pages 81-90, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Alam, Khorshed & Mamun, Shamsul Arifeen Khan, 2016. "The relationship between labour force status and educational attainment: Evidence from a system of simultaneous equations model," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 55-65.
    5. Audrey K.L. Siah & Grace H.Y. Lee, 2015. "Female labour force participation, infant mortality and fertility in Malaysia," Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(4), pages 613-629, October.
    6. Massimiliano Bratti, 2003. "Labour force participation and marital fertility of Italian women: The role of education," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 16(3), pages 525-554, August.
    7. Paresh Kumar Narayan & Russell Smyth, 2006. "Female labour force participation, fertility and infant mortality in Australia: some empirical evidence from Granger causality tests," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(5), pages 563-572.
    8. Francesco Pastore, 2012. "To Study or to Work?," Eastern European Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(3), pages 49-78, May.
    9. William Robert Reed, 2015. "On the Practice of Lagging Variables to Avoid Simultaneity," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 77(6), pages 897-905, December.
    10. Lee, Grace H.Y. & Lee, Sing Ping, 2014. "Childcare availability, fertility and female labor force participation in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 71-85.
    11. Becker, Gary S, 1985. "Human Capital, Effort, and the Sexual Division of Labor," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(1), pages 33-58, January.
    12. Tsani, Stella & Paroussos, Leonidas & Fragiadakis, Costas & Charalambidis, Ioannis & Capros, Pantelis, 2013. "Female labour force participation and economic growth in the South Mediterranean countries," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 120(2), pages 323-328.
    13. Christian Siegel, 2017. "Female Relative Wages, Household Specialization and Fertility," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 24, pages 152-174, March.
    14. M. Hashem Pesaran & Yongcheol Shin & Richard J. Smith, 2001. "Bounds testing approaches to the analysis of level relationships," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(3), pages 289-326.
    15. Jacob Mincer, 1962. "Labor Force Participation of Married Women: A Study of Labor Supply," NBER Chapters, in: Aspects of Labor Economics, pages 63-105, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. World Bank, 2017. "World Development Indicators 2017," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 26447, December.
    17. Mishra, Vinod & Smyth, Russell, 2010. "Female labor force participation and total fertility rates in the OECD: New evidence from panel cointegration and Granger causality testing," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 48-64, January.
    18. World Bank, 2016. "World Development Indicators 2016," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 23969, December.
    19. Engle, Robert & Granger, Clive, 2015. "Co-integration and error correction: Representation, estimation, and testing," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 39(3), pages 106-135.
    20. Robert Weller, 1977. "Wife’s employment and cumulative family size in the United States, 1970 and 1960," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 14(1), pages 43-65, February.
    21. Zhang, Junchao, 2017. "A dilemma of fertility and female labor supply: Identification using Taiwanese twins," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 47-63.
    22. Gary S. Becker & Robert J. Barro, 1988. "A Reformulation of the Economic Theory of Fertility," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 103(1), pages 1-25.
    23. Gary S. Becker, 1960. "An Economic Analysis of Fertility," NBER Chapters, in: Demographic and Economic Change in Developed Countries, pages 209-240, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. Johansen, Soren, 1988. "Statistical analysis of cointegration vectors," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 12(2-3), pages 231-254.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lee, Grace H.Y. & Lee, Sing Ping, 2014. "Childcare availability, fertility and female labor force participation in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 71-85.
    2. Chor Foon Tang & Nai-Peng Tey, 2017. "Low fertility in Malaysia: Can it be explained?," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 101-118, June.
    3. Dierk Herzer & Holger Strulik & Sebastian Vollmer, 2012. "The long-run determinants of fertility: one century of demographic change 1900–1999," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 357-385, December.
    4. Ghosh, Sudeshna, 2017. "South Asian Countries : Economic Growth and Fertility," MPRA Paper 99891, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Yew Seng Law & Chung-Khain Wye, 2023. "The effects of fertility on female labour force participation in OECD countries: the role of education and health," Studies in Economics and Econometrics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(3), pages 280-302, July.
    6. Ehrlich, Isaac & Lui, Francis, 1997. "The problem of population and growth: A review of the literature from Malthus to contemporary models of endogenous population and endogenous growth," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 205-242, January.
    7. Thirunaukarasu Subramaniam & Nanthakumar Loganathan & Evelyn S. Devadason, 2018. "Determinants Of Female Fertility In Asean-5: Empirical Evidence From Bounds Cointegration Test," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 63(03), pages 593-618, June.
    8. Tiwari, Chhavi & Goli, Srinivas & Rammohan, Anu, 2021. "Reproductive Burden And Its Impact On Female Labour Market Outcomes In India: Evidence From Longitudinal Analyses," SocArXiv nhjvm, Center for Open Science.
    9. Oludele Emmanuel Folarin, 2019. "Financial reforms and industrialisation: evidence from Nigeria," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 21(1), pages 166-189, June.
    10. Timothy W. Guinnane, 2011. "The Historical Fertility Transition: A Guide for Economists," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(3), pages 589-614, September.
    11. Faisal Faisal & Ruqiya Pervaiz & Nesrin Ozatac & Turgut Tursoy, 2021. "Exploring the relationship between carbon dioxide emissions, urbanisation and financial deepening for Turkey using the symmetric and asymmetric causality approaches," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(12), pages 17374-17402, December.
    12. Jakob Madsen & Holger Strulik, 2023. "Testing unified growth theory: Technological progress and the child quantity‐quality tradeoff," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(1), pages 235-275, January.
    13. Ronen Bar-El & Teresa García-Muñoz & Shoshana Neuman & Yossef Tobol, 2013. "The evolution of secularization: cultural transmission, religion and fertility—theory, simulations and evidence," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(3), pages 1129-1174, July.
    14. Robinson, James A. & Srinivasan, T.N., 1993. "Long-term consequences of population growth: Technological change, natural resources, and the environment," Handbook of Population and Family Economics, in: M. R. Rosenzweig & Stark, O. (ed.), Handbook of Population and Family Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 21, pages 1175-1298, Elsevier.
    15. Ademola Obafemi Young, 2019. "Growth Impacts of Income Inequality: Empirical Evidence From Nigeria," Research in World Economy, Research in World Economy, Sciedu Press, vol. 10(3), pages 226-262, December.
    16. Marla Ripoll & Juan Carlos Cordoba, 2011. "A Contribution to the Economic Theory of Fertility," 2011 Meeting Papers 1207, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    17. Sunha Myong & JungJae Park & Junjian Yi, 2021. "Social Norms and Fertility," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(5), pages 2429-2466.
    18. Idris, Asma Rashidah & Habibullah, Muzafar & Haji Din, Badariah, 2018. "Does Financial Development Contribute to Fertility Decline in Malaysia? An Empirical Investigation," Jurnal Ekonomi Malaysia, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, vol. 52(1), pages 191-203.
    19. George Hondroyiannis, 2010. "Fertility Determinants and Economic Uncertainty: An Assessment Using European Panel Data," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 33-50, March.
    20. Henrik Kleven & Camille Landais, 2017. "Gender Inequality and Economic Development: Fertility, Education and Norms," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 84(334), pages 180-209, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fertility; Singapore; Malaysia; 2SLS; Female labour participation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:ijlaec:v:62:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1007_s41027-019-00170-z. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.