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Fertility as a Driver of Maternal Employment

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  • Schmieder, Julia

Abstract

Based on findings from high-income countries, typically economists hypothesize that having more children unambiguously decreases the time mothers spend in the labor market. Few studies on lower-income countries, in which low household wealth, informal child care, and informal employment opportunities prevail, find mixed results. Using Mexican census data, I find a positive effect of an instrument-induced increase in fertility on maternal employment driven by an increase in informal work. The presence of grandparents and low wealth appear to be important. Econometric approaches that allow extrapolating from this complier-specific effect indicate that the response in informal employment is non-negative for the entire sample.

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  • Schmieder, Julia, 2020. "Fertility as a Driver of Maternal Employment," IZA Discussion Papers 13496, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13496
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    2. Cheick Kader M’baye, 2023. "Fertility, employment, and the demographic dividend in sub-Saharan African countries with incipient demographic transition: evidence from Mali," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 40(2), pages 1-15, June.
    3. Schrenker, Annekatrin, 2023. "Do women expect wage cuts for part-time work?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    middle-income countries; female labor supply; fertility; informality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • J46 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Informal Labor Market

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