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The Effect of Fertility on Mothers’ Labor Supply over the Last Two Centuries

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  • Rajeev Dehejia
  • Rajeev Dehejia
  • Andrew Jordan
  • Cristian Pop-Eleches
  • Cyrus Samii
  • Karl Schulze

Abstract

This paper documents the evolving impact of childbearing on the work activity of mothers. Based on a compiled dataset of 441 censuses and surveys between 1787 and 2015, representing 103 countries and 48.4 million mothers, we document three main findings: (1) the effect of fertility on labor supply is small and typically indistinguishable from zero at low levels of development and economically large and negative at higher levels of development; (2) this negative gradient is remarkably consistent across histories of currently developed countries and contemporary cross-sections of countries; and (3) the results are strikingly robust to identification strategies, model specification, data construction, and rescaling. We explain our results within a standard labor-leisure model and attribute the negative labor supply gradient to changes in the sectoral and occupational structure of female jobs as countries develop.

Suggested Citation

  • Rajeev Dehejia & Rajeev Dehejia & Andrew Jordan & Cristian Pop-Eleches & Cyrus Samii & Karl Schulze, 2017. "The Effect of Fertility on Mothers’ Labor Supply over the Last Two Centuries," Working Paper Series WP-2017-14, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedhwp:wp-2017-14
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    Cited by:

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    2. Rajeev Dehejia & Cristian Pop-Eleches & Cyrus Samii, 2021. "From Local to Global: External Validity in a Fertility Natural Experiment," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(1), pages 217-243, January.
    3. Nikolova, Elena & Polansky, Jakub, 2022. "Children and female employment in Mongolia," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 46(3).
    4. Bhalotra, Sonia R. & Venkataramani, Atheendar & Walther, Selma, 2018. "Fertility and Labor Market Responses to Reductions in Mortality," IZA Discussion Papers 11716, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Sonia Bhalotra & Damian Clarke, 2020. "The Twin Instrument: Fertility and Human Capital Investment," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(6), pages 3090-3139.
    6. Iva Trako, 2018. "Fertility and Parental Labor-Force Participation: New Evidence from a Developing Country in the Balkans," PSE Working Papers halshs-01828471, HAL.
    7. Nikolova, Elena & Polansky, Jakub, 2022. "Children and Female Employment in Mongolia," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1015, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    8. Nthabeleng Lillian Moshoeshoe & Baorong Yu, 2021. "Economic Growth and Participation of Women in Labor Markets: The Case of Southern Africa," International Journal of Science and Business, IJSAB International, vol. 5(1), pages 30-41.
    9. Anh P. Ngo, 2020. "Effects of Vietnam’s two-child policy on fertility, son preference, and female labor supply," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(3), pages 751-794, July.
    10. Chu, Yu-Wei Luke & Cuffe, Harold E. & Doan, Nguyen, 2020. "Motherhood Employment Penalty and Gender Wage Gap Across Countries: 1990–2010," MPRA Paper 99866, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Julia Schmieder, 2020. "Fertility as a Driver of Maternal Employment," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1882, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    12. Elena Nikolova & Jakub Polansky, 2022. "Children and Female Employment in Mongolia," Discussion Papers 61, Central European Labour Studies Institute (CELSI).
    13. Iva Trako, 2018. "Fertility and Parental Labor-Force Participation: New Evidence from a Developing Country in the Balkans," Working Papers halshs-01828471, HAL.
    14. Chu, Yu-Wei Luke & Cuffe, Harold E & Doan, Nguyen, 2021. "Motherhood Employment Penalty and Gender Wage Gap Across Countries: 1990–2010," Working Paper Series 9446, Victoria University of Wellington, School of Economics and Finance.
    15. Bhalotra, Sonia & Venkataramani, Atheendar & Walther, Selma, 2018. "Fertility and labor market responses to reductions in mortality," ISER Working Paper Series 2018-15, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    16. Schmieder, Julia, 2021. "Fertility as a driver of maternal employment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    17. Guber, Raphael, 2018. "Instrument Validity Tests with Causal Trees: With an Application to the Same-sex Instrument," MEA discussion paper series 201805, Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Twins; instrumental variables; development; economic history; fertility; labor supply;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F63 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Economic Development
    • F66 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Labor
    • J00 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - General
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • N00 - Economic History - - General - - - General

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