On the Changing Relationship between Fertility and Female Employment over Space and Time

Henriette Engelhardt, Austrian Academy of Sciences
Alexia Fuernkranz-Prskawetz, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

Various authors find that in OECD countries the cross-country correlation between the total fertility rate and the female labor force participation rate turned from a negative value before the 1980s to a positive value thereafter. Based on pooled cross-sectional data, Kögel (2002) shows that (a) unmeasured country-specific factors and (b) country-heterogeneity in the magnitude of the negative time-series association accounts for the reversal in the sign of the cross-country correlation coefficient. Our paper aims to identify those variables that may explain country heterogeneity in the negative association between fertility and female labor force participation. We apply aggregate descriptive representations of the time series and cross-country evolution of fertility, female employment and a set of labor market, educational and demographic variables and indicators of social policy. We confront our findings with existing macro and micro demographic theories and point towards some refinements.