IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bdi/wptemi/td_783_10.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

(Non)persistent effects of fertility on female labour supply

Author

Listed:
  • Concetta Rondinelli

    (Bank of Italy)

  • Roberta Zizza

    (Bank of Italy)

Abstract

The negative association between fertility and female labour market participation is complicated by the endogeneity of fertility. We address this problem by using an exogenous variation in family size caused by infertility shocks, mainly related to the fact that nature prevents some women from achieving their desired fertility levels. Despite a widely documented reduction of female labour supply around childbirth, using the Bank of Italy's SHIW we find that this effect dissipates over time, with some clues of penalties related to job quality. Results are confirmed exploiting the Istat Birth Survey, with insights of a different impact according to the age of the child.

Suggested Citation

  • Concetta Rondinelli & Roberta Zizza, 2010. "(Non)persistent effects of fertility on female labour supply," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 783, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    • Handle: RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_783_10
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/temi-discussione/2010/2010-0783/en_tema_783.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Del Boca, Daniela & Locatelli, Marilena, 2006. "The Determinants of Motherhood and Work Status: A Survey," IZA Discussion Papers 2414, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Rosenzweig, Mark R & Wolpin, Kenneth I, 1980. "Life-Cycle Labor Supply and Fertility: Causal Inferences from Household Models," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(2), pages 328-348, April.
    3. Cruces, Guillermo & Galiani, Sebastian, 2007. "Fertility and female labor supply in Latin America: New causal evidence," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 565-573, June.
    4. Daniela Del Boca & Marilena Locatelli & Silvia Pasqua, 2000. "Employment Decisions of Married Women: Evidence and Explanations," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 14(1), pages 35-52, March.
    5. Bronars, Stephen G & Grogger, Jeff, 1994. "The Economic Consequences of Unwed Motherhood: Using Twin Births as a Natural Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1141-1156, December.
    6. V. Joseph Hotz & Susan Williams McElroy & Seth G. Sanders, 2005. "Teenage Childbearing and Its Life Cycle Consequences: Exploiting a Natural Experiment," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(3).
    7. Angrist, Joshua D & Evans, William N, 1998. "Children and Their Parents' Labor Supply: Evidence from Exogenous Variation in Family Size," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 450-477, June.
    8. Massimiliano Bratti & Emilia Del Bono & Daniela Vuri, 2005. "New Mothers’ Labour Force Participation in Italy: The Role of Job Characteristics," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 19(s1), pages 79-121, December.
    9. Mincer, Jacob, 1985. "Intercountry Comparisons of Labor Force Trends and of Related Developments: An Overview," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(1), pages 1-32, January.
    10. Goldin, Claudia, 1992. "Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195072709.
    11. Piero Casadio & Martina Lo Conte & Andrea Neri, 2008. "Balancing work and family in Italy: New mothers� employment decisions after childbirth," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 684, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    12. Alison L. Booth & Hiau Joo Kee, 2009. "Intergenerational Transmission of Fertility Patterns," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 71(2), pages 183-208, April.
    13. Amalia Miller, 2011. "The effects of motherhood timing on career path," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 24(3), pages 1071-1100, July.
    14. Pedro Mira & Namkee Ahn, 2002. "A note on the changing relationship between fertility and female employment rates in developed countries," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 15(4), pages 667-682.
    15. Kristin F. Butcher & Anne Case, 1994. "The Effect of Sibling Sex Composition on Women's Education and Earnings," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(3), pages 531-563.
    16. Del Boca, Daniela & Pronzato, Chiara & Pasqua, Silvia, 2006. "The impact of institutions on motherhood and work," ISER Working Paper Series 2006-55, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    17. Heckman, James J, 1974. "Shadow Prices, Market Wages, and Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 42(4), pages 679-694, July.
    18. V. Joseph Hotz & Charles H. Mullin & Seth G. Sanders, 1997. "Bounding Causal Effects Using Data from a Contaminated Natural Experiment: Analysing the Effects of Teenage Childbearing," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 64(4), pages 575-603.
    19. 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.
    20. Federico Cingano & Piero Cipollone, 2007. "University drop-out. The case of Italy," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 626, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    21. Julian P. Cristia, 2008. "The Effect of a First Child on Female Labor Supply: Evidence from Women Seeking Fertility Services," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(3), pages 487-510.
    22. Rosenzweig, Mark R & Wolpin, Kenneth I, 1980. "Testing the Quantity-Quality Fertility Model: The Use of Twins as a Natural Experiment," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(1), pages 227-240, January.
    23. Del Boca, Daniela & Locatelli, Marilena & Vuri, Daniela, 2004. "Child Care Choices by Italian Households," IZA Discussion Papers 983, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    24. Ermisch, John & J. Pevalin, David, 2003. "Who has a child as a teenager?," ISER Working Paper Series 2003-30, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    25. Smith, James P & Ward, Michael P, 1985. "Time-Series Growth in the Female Labor Force," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(1), pages 59-90, January.
    26. Jorge M. Aguero & Mindy S. Marks, 2008. "Motherhood and Female Labor Force Participation: Evidence from Infertility Shocks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 500-504, May.
    27. John Ermisch & David Pevalin, 2005. "Early motherhood and later partnerships," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 18(3), pages 469-489, September.
    28. Browning, Martin, 1992. "Children and Household Economic Behavior," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 1434-1475, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Angelov, Nikolay & Karimi, Arizo, 2012. "Mothers’ Income Recovery after Childbearing," Working Paper Series, Center for Labor Studies 2012:19, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    2. Francesca Modena & Concetta Rondinelli & Fabio Sabatini, 2014. "Economic Insecurity and Fertility Intentions: The Case of Italy," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(S1), pages 233-255, May.
    3. Rupert, Peter & Zanella, Giulio, 2018. "Grandchildren and their grandparents' labor supply," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 89-103.
    4. Hupkau, Claudia & Leturcq, Marion, 2017. "Fertility and mothers’ labor supply: new evidence usingtime-to-conception," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 69045, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Richiardi Matteo & Poggi Ambra, 2012. "Imputing Individual Effects in Dynamic Microsimulation Models. An application of the Rank Method," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201213, University of Turin.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    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. Ambra Poggi & Matteo Richiardi, 2012. "Accounting for Unobserved Heterogeneity in Discrete-time, Discrete-choice Dynamic Microsimulation Models. An application to Labor Supply and Household Formation in Italy," LABORatorio R. Revelli Working Papers Series 117, LABORatorio R. Revelli, Centre for Employment Studies.
    10. 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).
    11. Jorge M. Agüero & Mindy Marks & Neha Raykar, 2020. "Economic Development and the Motherhood Wage Penalty," Working papers 2020-06, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    12. Matteo Richiardi & Ambra Poggi, 2014. "Imputing Individual Effects in Dynamic Microsimulation Models. An application to household formation and labour market participation in Italy," International Journal of Microsimulation, International Microsimulation Association, vol. 7(2), pages 3-39.
    13. repec:zbw:bofitp:2021_007 is not listed 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. Lundborg, Petter & Plug, Erik & Rasmussen, Astrid Würtz, 2014. "Fertility Effects on Female Labor Supply: IV Evidence from IVF Treatments," IZA Discussion Papers 8609, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Anna Baranowska-Rataj & Anna Matysiak, 2016. "The Causal Effects of the Number of Children on Female Employment - Do European Institutional and Gender Conditions Matter?," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 343-367, September.
    3. Damian Clarke, 2018. "Children And Their Parents: A Review Of Fertility And Causality," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 518-540, April.
    4. Hupkau, Claudia & Leturcq, Marion, 2017. "Fertility and mothers’ labor supply: new evidence usingtime-to-conception," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 69045, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. 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.
    6. Cáceres-Delpiano, Julio, 2008. "Keeping the best for last. Impact of fertility on mother's employment. Evidence from developing countries," UC3M Working papers. Economics we086832, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    7. Markussen, Simen & Strøm, Marte, 2015. "The Effects of Motherhood," Memorandum 19/2015, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    8. de Jong, Eelke & Smits, Jeroen & Longwe, Abiba, 2017. "Estimating the Causal Effect of Fertility on Women’s Employment in Africa Using Twins," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 360-368.
    9. Julio Cáceres-Delpiano, 2012. "Can We Still Learn Something From the Relationship Between Fertility and Mother’s Employment? Evidence From Developing Countries," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 49(1), pages 151-174, February.
    10. Petter Lundborg & Erik Plug & Astrid Würtz Rasmussen, 2017. "Can Women Have Children and a Career? IV Evidence from IVF Treatments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(6), pages 1611-1637, June.
    11. Simon Bensnes & Ingrid Huitfeldt & Edwin Leuven, 2023. "Reconciling estimates of the long-term earnings effect of fertility," Discussion Papers 1004, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    12. Julian P. Cristia, 2006. "The Effect of a First Child on Female Labor Supply: Evidence from Women Seeking Fertility Services: Working Paper 2006-11," Working Papers 18233, Congressional Budget Office.
    13. Anna Baranowska, 2013. "The family size effects on female employment. Evidence from the “natural experiments” related to human reproduction," Working Papers 57, Institute of Statistics and Demography, Warsaw School of Economics.
    14. Griffen, Andrew S. & Nakamuro, Makiko & Inui, Tomohiko, 2015. "Fertility and maternal labor supply in Japan: Conflicting policy goals?," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 52-72.
    15. Bhalotra, Sonia & Clarke, Damian & Walther, Selma, 2022. "Women's Careers and Family Formation," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1120, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    16. Joseph Boniface Ajefu, 2019. "Does having children affect women’s entrepreneurship decision? Evidence from Nigeria," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 843-860, September.
    17. Karbownik, Krzysztof & Myck, Michal, 2012. "For Some Mothers More Than Others: How Children Matter for Labour Market Outcomes When Both Fertility and Female Employment Are Low," IZA Discussion Papers 6933, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Sara Cools & Simen Markussen & Marte Strøm, 2017. "Children and Careers: How Family Size Affects Parents’ Labor Market Outcomes in the Long Run," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(5), pages 1773-1793, October.
    19. Jorge M. Agüero & Mindy S. Marks, 2011. "Motherhood and Female Labor Supply in the Developing World: Evidence from Infertility Shocks," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 46(4), pages 800-826.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    participation; children; motherhood; female employment rate; Italy;
    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
    • C25 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions; Probabilities

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:bdi:wptemi:td_783_10. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bdigvit.html .

    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.