Fertility and Female Employment: A Panel Study on Developing Countries

Emara, Noha (2015): Fertility and Female Employment: A Panel Study on Developing Countries.

Abstract

The study analyzes the effect of female employment on fertility rate. Using panel fertility regression specification with Prais-Winsten regressions procedure, panel-corrected standard errors, and autoregressive errors on a sample of 29 developing countries over the period 1990-2011, the study estimates the effect of female labor participation on fertility rate. To pick up country-specific factors, using the principal component analysis, the study estimates a family policy index that consists of three important family policy variables including: Duration of paid leave for mothers (weeks), wage replacement of paid leave for mothers (%), and length of breast feeding coverage (years). Furthermore, to pick up fixed effects and time effects, the study includes geographic location (latitude) and time effects. The empirical results confirm the finding of Engelhardt and Prskawetz (2005) that the increase in female labor force participation rate has a negative impact on fertility and that this negative effect is decreasing over time. Also, the results suggest that more flexible policies toward family planning such as longer duration of paid leave for mothers, higher percentage of wage replacement of paid leave for mothers, and longer breast feeding coverage help in increasing fertility. Finally, in line with Pampel (2001), Kogel (2004) and Engelhardt and Prskawetz (2005) the study finds that time trend affects this negative relationship between female labor participation and fertility where the negative impact of the former on the latter decreases over time.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Fertility, Female Employment, Panel Regression, Prais Winsten, Family Policies.
• Subjects: C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C3 - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models ; Multiple Variables > C33 - Panel Data Models ; Spatio-temporal Models; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J13 - Fertility ; Family Planning ; Child Care ; Children ; Youth; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor > J21 - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure

References

Agadanian V., 2000. Women’s work and fertility in a Sub-Sahara urban setting. A social environment approach .J.Biosoc.sci. 32: 17-35.

Banerjee, B., 2004. Differential of fertility and women's employment. Indian Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 8 (2), 34-37.

Becker, G. 1991, A Treatise on the Family. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

Beguy, D., 2009. The impact of female employment on fertility in Dakar (Senegal) and Lome (Togo). Retrieved May 4, from http://www.demographicresearch. org/Volumes/Vol20/7/ 20: 97-128

Browning, M. 1992. Children and Household Economic Behavior. Journal of Economic Literature, vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 1434-1475.

Carrasco, R. 2001. Binary Choice With Binary Endogenous Regressors in Panel Data: Estimating the Effect of Fertility in Female Labor Participation. Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, vol. 19, pp. 385-394.

Cigno, A., 1991. Economics of the Family. Oxford University Press.

Engelhardt, H. and Prskawetz, A., 2005. A Pooled Time Series Analysis on the Relation Between Fertility and Female Employment. European Demographic Research Paper, 255388904, issue (1)

Ermisch, J. F., 2003. An Economic Analysis of the Family. Princeton University Press.

Lloyd, C.B., 1991. The contribution of the World Fertility Surveys to an understanding of the relationship between women’s work and fertility. Studies in FamilyPlanning 22(3): 144-161. doi:10.2307/1966642.

Nakamura, A. and Nakamura, M., 1985. Dynamic Models of the Labor Force Behavior of Married Women Which Can be Estimated Using Limited Amounts of Past Information. Journal of Econometrics, vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 273-298.

Piché, V., Poirier, J., and Neill, G., 1989. Travail des femmes et fécondité dans les pays en développement: que nous a appris l’Enquête mondiale de la fécondité ? Cahiers québécois de démographie 18(1): 159-184.

Pierre-Carl M. and Tatsiramos, K. 2011. Fertility and female employment dynamics in Europe: the effect of using alternative econometric modeling assumptions. Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(4), pages 641-668, 06.

United Nations Statistical Annex (2012) http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/policy/wesp/wesp_current/2012country_class.pdf

WoRLD Legal Rights Database Center, http://raisingtheglobalfloor.org/policies/single-policy-1.php

Yohannes F., Yimane B., Alemayehu W., 2003. Differentials of fertility in rural Butajira. Ethiop J Health Dev, 17(1):17-25.