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Female employment and fertility - the effects of rising female wages

Siegel, Christian (2012) Female employment and fertility - the effects of rising female wages. CEP Discussion Papers (CEPDP1156). London School of Economics and Political Science. Centre for Economic Performance, London, UK.

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Abstract

Increases in female employment and falling fertility rates have often been linked to rising female wages. However, over the last 30 years the US total fertility rate has been fairly stable while female wages have continued to grow. Over the same period, we observe that women's hours spent on housework have declined, but men's have increased. I propose a model with a shrinking gender wage gap that can capture these trends. While rising relative wages tend to increase women's labor supply and, due to higher opportunity cost, lower fertility, they also lead to a partial reallocation of home production from women to men, and a higher use of labor-saving inputs into home production. I find that both these trends are important in understanding why fertility did not decline to even lower levels. As the gender wage gap declines, a father's time at home becomes more important for raising children. When the disutilities from working in the market and at home are imperfect substitutes, fertility can stabilize, after an initial decline, in times of increasing female market labor. That parents can acquire more market inputs into child care is what I find important in matching the timing of fertility. In a mode l extension, I show that the results are robust to intrahousehold bargaining.

Item Type: Monograph (Discussion Paper)
Official URL: https://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/publications/discussion...
Additional Information: © 2012 The Author(s)
Divisions: LSE
Subjects: H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions
JEL classification: D - Microeconomics > D1 - Household Behavior and Family Economics > D13 - Household Production and Intrahousehold Allocation
E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E2 - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment > E24 - Macroeconomics: Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution (includes wage indexation)
J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J13 - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Time Allocation, Work Behavior, and Employment Determination and Creation; Human Capital; Retirement > J22 - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
Date Deposited: 26 Feb 2024 12:00
Last Modified: 14 Sep 2024 04:45
URI: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/121905

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