Search

We review the foundations of the economic development-contraception nexus, focusing on the pathways through which economic factors drive contraceptive adoption and change. We investigate the channels through which the relationship between economic development and contraceptive dynamics are mediated. Using global data, we document the correlations between economic development and contraception transitions over time and across geographies. We briefly examine the evidence of the role of fertility, both desired and realized, as a central pathway through which the relationship has been historically theorized and empirically verified. We also discuss a range of mechanisms through which economic development drives contraceptive use independently from fertility decline. Finally, we assess the state and quality of evidence of these relationships and propose directions for future inquiry.

In this paper, we combine administrative data for continental Spain from 2010 to 2018 with meteorological data to identify the effect of temperature on fertility. We demonstrate that warm (25-30°C) and hot days (>30°C) decrease total fertility rate (TFR) in Spain, and that the estimated decrease is higher than the effects estimated in previous literature for other countries. Moreover, we show that locations with a colder climate are more vulnerable to the impact of heat. Our results suggest that the global impact of climate change on population dynamics may be understated, especially without adaptation and mitigation measures, and that temperature increases may exacerbate the socio-economic consequences of low fertility such as population ageing.

This paper studies retirement and child support policies in a small, open, overlapping-generations economy with PAYG social security and endogenous retirement and fertility decisions. It demonstrates that neither fertility nor retirement choices necessarily coincide with socially optimal allocation, because agents do not take into account the externalities of fertility and the elderly labor supply in the economy as a whole. It shows that governments can realize the first-best allocation by introducing a child allowance scheme and a subsidy to incentivize the labor supply of older workers. As an alternative to subsidizing the elderly labor supply, we show that the first-best allocation can also be achieved by controlling the retirement age. Finally, the model is simulated in order to study whether the policies devoted to realizing the social optimum in a market economy could be a Pareto improvement.

We study the impact of restricting child-related social assistance to the first two children in the family on the fertility of third and subsequent births. As of April 2017, all third and subsequent born children to low-income families in the UK did not receive means-tested child benefits, amounting to a reduction in income relative to the previous system of approximately 3000 GBP a year per child. We use administrative births microdata and household survey data to estimate the impact of the two-child limit on higher-order births with a triple differences approach, exploiting variation over date of birth, socio-economic status, and birth order. We find some evidence that the policy led to a small decline in higher-order fertility among lowincome families. However, compared to earlier research in the UK and elsewhere, largely based on benefit increases, the impact is small. This may be due to informational barriers or to other economic and social constraints affecting low income families. Our results imply that the main impact of cuts to child benefits is not to reduce fertility but to withdraw income from low-income families, with potential implications for child poverty.

I investigate the link between access to the contraceptive pill, mental health, and labor market outcomes. While liberalizing labor market effects of access to the pill are well established, a medical literature suggests a link between hormonal contraception and depression. Exploiting variation in access to the pill, I document substantial mental health effects of the pill. These mental health effects counteract the fertility control effect of the pill on labor market outcomes and are associated with limitations at work and more disability periods. The analysis also shows that the fertility control effect of the pill is larger than previously estimated.

This work was funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Children and Families, the Ministry of Health and Care Services, the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and the Ministry of Education and Research through the “Determinants of falling fertility” project, and supported by the Norwegian Research Council through its Centres of Excellence funding scheme (#262700) and the FAMGEN project (#236926). This paper describes the results of a systematic review of the literature of policy effects on fertility after 1970 in Europe, USA, Canada and Australia. Empirical studies were selected through extensive systematic searches, with subsequent literature list screening. Inclusion was conditional on implementing an experimental or quasi-experimental design. 57 published papers and recent working papers were included, covering the topics of parental leave, childcare, health services, universal child transfers and welfare reforms. Childcare and universal transfers seem to have the most positive effects on fertility. Few effects were found for parental leave, but this could be linked to these reforms not lending themselves to efficient (quasi)experimental evaluation. Withdrawing cash transfers to families through welfare reforms has limited fertility effects. Subsidizing assisted reproductive technologies show some promise in increasing birth rates of women above age 35.

This paper studies how the statutory right to work part-time affects mothers' post-birth labor market outcomes and higher-order fertility. I use a differences-in-differences design to investigate the introduction of a German law in 2001 that grants the right to work part-time to employees working in firms with more than 15 employees. I find that the reform does not increase the probability to return to work after childbirth significantly. However, mothers who gain the right to work part-time are more likely to work part-time in the short-run after childbirth, indicating that the law is effective in granting access to part-time employment to those mothers who want it. While the probability to return to work after childbirth is unaffected, the law has a positive effect on maternal employment and labor income in the long-run. The results suggest that the increase in the employment rate is due to a lower probability to drop out of the labor market after the temporary return and a lower probability to give birth to an additional child.

Job insecurity can have wide-ranging consequences outside of the labour market. We here argue that it reduces fertility amongst the employed. The 1999 rise in the French Delalande tax, paid by large private firms when they laid off workers aged over 50, produced an exogenous rise in job insecurity for younger workers in these firms. A difference-in-differences analysis of French ECHP data reveals that this greater job insecurity for these under-50s significantly reduced their probability of having a new child by 3.9 percentage points. Reduced fertility is only found at the intensive margin: job insecurity reduces family size but not the probability of parenthood itself. Our results also suggest negative selection into parenthood, as this fertility effect does not appear for low-income and less-educated workers.

The aim of this paper is to compare the demographic potential of given Italian and Polish regions. The analysis shows that the demographic situation in Poland, unlike in Italy, is not directly related to the level of development of some regions and their geographical location. In Italy, the unfavorable demographic situation is typical of most of the less-developed southern regions, whereas in Poland it oc­curs in voivodships with different economic potential, situated in different parts of the country. This is probably the result of the current polycentric development of Poland, characteristic of a centralized economy, and the polar development in Italy. Certain demographic similarities, but of different levels, related to the dynamics of the population, the level of fertility, and net migration are observable in the macro-regions of Mezzogiorno and Eastern Poland.

This paper provides evidence on child penalties in female and male earnings in different countries. The estimates are based on event studies around the birth of the first child, using the specification proposed by Kleven et al. (2018). The analysis reveals some striking similarities in the qualitative effects of children across countries, but also sharp differences in the magnitude of the effects. We discuss the potential role of family policies (parental leave and childcare provision) and gender norms in explaining the observed differences.

Persistent house price increases are a likely candidate for consideration in fertility decisions. Theoretically, higher housing prices will cause renters to desire fewer additional children, but home owners to desire more children if they already have sufficient housing and low substitution between children and other “goods”, and fewer children otherwise. In this paper, the authors combine longitudinal data from the Canadian Survey of Labour Income and Dynamics (SLID) and averaged housing price data from the Canadian Real Estate Association to estimate the effect of housing prices on fertility in a housing market that has historically been less volatile and more conservative than its American counterpart has. They ask whether changes in lagged housing price affect the marginal fertility of homeowner and renter women aged 18–45. They present results both excluding and including those who move outside their initial real estate board area, using initial area housing prices as an instrument in the latter case. For homeowners, but not renters, the authors predominantly find evidence that lagged housing prices have a positive effect on marginal fertility and possibly on completed fertility. These pro-natal effects are confined to non-movers.

There have been significant changes in both the fertility rates and fertility perception since 1970s. In this paper, we examine the relationship between government policies towards fertility and the fertility trends. Total fertility rate, defined as the number of children per woman, is used as the main fertility trend variable. We use panel data from the United Nations World Population Policies database, and the World Bank World Development Indicators for the period 1976 through 2013. We find a significant negative association between a country’s fertility rate and its anti-fertility policy. On the other hand, there is no significant and robust relationship between the fertility rate and a country’s pro-fertility or family-planning policies. In addition we find evidence of spatial autocorrelation in the total fertility rate, and spatial spillovers from a government’s policy on fertility.

In this paper, I assess whether earnings-dependent maternity leave positively impacts fertility and narrows the baby gap between highly educated (high-earning) and less-educated (low-earning) women. I exploit a major maternity leave benefit reform in Germany that considerably increased the financial incentives, by up to 21,000 EUR, for highly educated and higher-earning women. Using the large differential changes in maternity leave benefits across education and income groups in a differences-in-differences design, I estimate the causal impact of the reform on fertility for up to 5 years. In addition to demonstrating an up to 23% increase in the fertility of tertiary-educated women, I find a positive, statistically significant effect of increased benefits on fertility, driven mainly by women at the middle and upper end of the earnings distribution. Overall, the results suggest that earnings-dependent maternity leave benefits, which compensate women according to their opportunity cost of childbearing, could successfully reduce the fertility rate disparity related to mothers' education and earnings.

To assess whether earnings-dependent maternity leave positively impacts fertility and narrows the baby gap between high educated (high earning) and low educated (low earning) women, I exploit a major maternity leave benefit reform in Germany that considerably increases the financial incentives for higher educated and higher earning women to have a child. In particular, I use the large differential changes in maternity leave benefits across education and income groups to estimate the effects on fertility up to 5 years post reform. In addition to demonstrating an up to 22% increase in the fertility of tertiary educated versus low educated women, I find a positive, statistically significant effect of increased benefits on fertility, driven mainly by women at the middle and upper end of the education and income distributions. Overall, the results suggest that earnings-dependent maternity leave benefits, which compensate women commensurate with their opportunity cost of childbearing, could successfully reduce the fertility rate disparity related to mothers’ education and earnings.

We compare the cost effectiveness of two pronatalist policies: (a) child allowances; and (b) daycare subsidies. We pay special attention to estimating how intended fertility (fertility before children are born) responds to these policies. We use two evaluation tools: (i) a dynamic model on fertility, labor supply, outsourced childcare time, parental time, asset accumulation and consumption; and (ii) randomized vignette-survey policy experiments. We implement both tools in the United States and Germany, finding consistent evidence that daycare subsidies are more cost effective. Nevertheless, the required public expenditure to increase fertility to the replacement level might be viewed as prohibitively high.

We compare the cost effectiveness of two pronatalist policies: (a) child allowances; and (b) daycare subsidies. We pay special attention to estimating how intended fertility (fertility before children are born) responds to these policies. We use two evaluation tools: (i) a dynamic model on fertility, labor supply, outsourced childcare time, parental time, asset accumulation and consumption; and (ii) randomized vignette-survey policy experiments. We implement both tools in the United States and Germany, finding consistent evidence that daycare subsidies are more cost effective. Nevertheless, the required public expenditure to increase fertility to the replacement level might be viewed as prohibitively high.

Zusammenfassung: Die vorliegende Studie stellt den aktuellen Stand der Forschung zu Wirkungen des Elterngeldes auf das Geburtenverhalten vor. Zunachst werden die okonomischen Anreize des Elterngeldes und deren potenzielle Wirkungen auf die Fertilitat aus theoretischer Sicht analysiert. Danach werden empirische Studien vorgestellt, die diese Zusammenhange mit Mikrodaten untersucht haben. Deren Ergebnisse werden insbesondere hinsichtlich der internen Validitat kritisch diskutiert. Obwohl nicht alle Studien als Kausalanalysen aufzufassen sind, deutet die bisherige Befundlage auf positive Anreizwirkung des Elterngeldes auf die Bezieher hoherer Einkommen. Zudem finden sich einschlagige regionale Unterschiede, wobei sich die intendierten Fertilitatswirkungen starker in den neuen als in den alten Bundeslandern entfalten. Am Schluss werden einige Politikimplikationen diskutiert. Summary: This paper reviews the research on the effects of the recent reform of the parental leave benefit system (Elterngeld) in Germany on fertility. I start with a brief discussion of the economic incentives of the reform and their potential effects on fertility from a theoretical perspective. Then I refer to previous empirical studies that have examined these relationships by using micro data. I discuss their main results and potential threats to internal validity. Although not all studies have been able to identify causal effect, the evidence generally suggests positive fertility responses among high-income couples. In addition, the research indicates substantial regional heterogeneity in fertility responses. The intended fertility effects are stronger in the former East Germany than in the West. Finally, I discuss some policy implications.

During the 20th century, Russian women were assigned the triple role of social and political activists, workers, caregivers and mothers. This paper makes an overview of the main steps undertaken first by the Soviet and later by the modern Russian governments to influence family formation models and fertility levels, in order to improve the demographic situation over the period from 1917 until 2015. The overview pays close attention to such measures of demographic policy as marriage and divorce regulation, support of families through family benefits and the tax system, reconciliation of family and work spheres (maternity/paternity leaves, workplace flexibility measures), fertility promotion, childbearing and childcare support, as well as rare reproductive health protection initiatives.

The negative correlation between women’s education and fertility is strongly observed across regions and time; however, its interpretation is unclear. Women’s education level could affect fertility through its impact on women’s health and their physical capacity to give birth, children’s health, the number of children desired, and women’s ability to control birth and knowledge of different birth control methods. Each of these mechanisms depends on the individual, institutional, and country circumstances experienced. Their relative importance may change along a country’s economic development process.

Some consequences of childbearing are partly expected by the parents, while others clearly are difficult or impossible to foresee. In this paper, the different types of consequences, for parents or siblings, are briefly reviewed. It is then argued that if an effect of childbearing to a large extent is expected, varies between families, and is taken into account in the fertility decisions, it is very difficult to estimate the average effect. On the other hand, the existence of unexpected consequences is important from another perspective: Families' wellbeing could be higher if, hypothetically, people who make fertility decisions knew the consequences of childbearing that are currently unexpected to them. Thus, a reasonable state response to low fertility might be to support research on whether families on the whole would be better off with more children, and help disseminate research findings. It is not obvious that other types of family-level welfare disadvantages supposedly linked to low fertility can justify political interventions.

This work evaluates the impact of an abortion reform in Uruguay allowing free interruption of pregnancy until 12 weeks of gestation on the quantity and quality of births in the short run. We employ a differences-in-differences approach, a comprehensive administrative register of births and a novel identification strategy based on the planned or unplanned nature of pregnancies that end in births. Our results suggest that this policy induced an 8% decline in the number of births of unplanned pregnancies, driven by the group of mothers between 20 and 34 years old with secondary education. This increased the average quality of births in terms of more intensive prenatal control care and a lower probability of having a single mother. Furthermore, we document a positive selection process of births affected by the reform, as adequate prenatal control care and Apgar scores rose among the affected demographic group.

RESUME :Aux Etats-Unis, durant les décennies 1970 et 1980, l’entrée massive des mères en couple sur le marché du travail a permis d’alimenter la croissance de l’activité féminine ;durant la décennie suivante, la participation des mères isolées a pris le relais sous l’impulsion des réformes de l’aide sociale au milieu des années 1990. Malgré ces tendances générales, la maternité pèse toujours sur les trajectoires professionnelles des femmes. L’environnement institutionnel américain peu favorable à l’équilibre entre vies familiale et professionnelle explique en partie cette pénalité que subissent les mères relativement aux hommes et aux femmes sans enfant., During the decades 1970 and 1980 in the United States, the married mothers’ participation to the labor market has grown dramatically; this has been the mainspring of the female labor force increase. During the next decade, single mothers have experience a growing labor force involvement. Despite these trends, motherhood has still a negative impact on mothers’ careers: interruptions, part time employment and lesser wage. The institutional structure in the United States does not support working mothers, who struggle to balance their family life and working life. This explains in part the motherhood penalty., Numéro spécial "Parentalité et emploi" décembre 2008, Editrice :Danièle Meulders, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

RESUME :Cet article analyse les disparités européennes en matière de politiques aidant les parents à concilier travail et vie familiale. On examine en particulier comment les différentes aides publiques sont complétées par le soutien que les employeurs accordent sous forme d’une offre de services ou d’une flexibilité du temps de travail. Les différences affectant ce soutien contribuent aux disparités de « régimes » de conciliation emploifamille observés en Europe. En particulier, on trouve que les pays nordiques se distinguent par une plus grande propension des employeurs à autoriser leurs employés de gérer leur temps de travail de façon très flexible. Ceci complète une aide publique à la conciliation plus développée pour les enfants de moins de trois ans. Les pays qui cumulent bas niveaux de fécondité et d’emploi des femmes sont ceux où toutes les formes d’aides sont plus limitées, ou dont la complémentarité n’est pas assurée., This paper analyses the variations in policies aiming at reconciling work and family life in Europe. We especially examine how public policy is completed by employers support in childcare services and flexible working time practices. Differences in this latter support are part of the variations in patterns of reconciliation between work and family. In particular, Nordic countries differ with a higher propensity of employers to provide very flexible working time schedule. This is added to a higher public support offered to parents with a child under age of preschool. Countries with the lowest fertility and female employment rates are those where all kinds of support are more limited, or where they are not complementary., Numéro spécial "Parentalité et emploi" décembre 2008, Editrice :Danièle Meulders, info:eu-repo/semantics/published