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Fertility has a close relationship with female labor force participation and is predicted to be the prominent factor affecting female labor force participation in rich and emerging countries. The decline in fertility worldwide, accompanied by increased female education, is assumed to increase female labor force participation. The increase in the female labor force participation rate can improve economic incentives for the country. Therefore, this study estimates the effect of fertility and female education on female labor force participation in cross-country panel datasets from 39 Asian countries, using panel ARDL analysis from 1990-2018. This study also examines the panel causality between the variables employing Dumitrescu and Hurlin’s (2012) Granger non-causality test. According to the Hausman test, among the three models in panel ARDL, DFE is the preferred model compared to the PMG and MG. The results revealed that fertility was negatively significant on female labor participation in the short run but not in the long run. In contrast, female education was positively significant on female labor participation in the long run but not in the short run. Meanwhile, the panel causality showed a bidirectional relationship between female labor participation and fertility, female labor participation and education, and fertility and female education.

We analyze the association between spouses' earnings taking account of non-linearities along both spouses' distribution of earnings. We also document the non-linearity of the relationships between earnings and labor force participation, earnings and couple formation, and earnings and number of children. Using simulations, we then analyze how changes in spouses' rank-dependence structure, labor force participation and couple formation contribute to the upsurge in inequality in the U.S between 1967 and 2018. We find that an increased tendency towards positive sorting contributed substantially to the rise in inequality only among dual-earner couples, while it contributed little to overall inequality across households. Temporal and distributional heterogeneity are important, as earnings association had a more substantial role in the bottom of the earnings distribution and in recent years. The decline in couple formation contributed substantially to the rise in inequality, while the increase in female labor force participation and the fertility decline had equalizing effects.The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10888-022-09539-5.

Background: The cross-sectional association between female employment and fertility across developed countries turned from negative to positive during the mid-1980s. The conventional view is that the observed positive association is spurious owing to country-specific heterogeneity. Objective: We revisit the validity of this view using recent data up to 2017 from 24 countries belonging to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Methods: Based on the data downloaded from the OECD database, we estimate the time-series association between the female labor force participation rate (FLFP) and total fertility rate (TFR) by fixed-effects regression models, which can control for country-specific heterogeneity. Results: The more recent the data set used, the more likely it is that the time-series correlation will be positive between FLFP and TFR, even after controlling for country-specific heterogeneity. We also observe that public spending on families, especially in the form of benefits in kind, starts increasing once FLFP becomes sufficiently high. Conclusions: A positive correlation between female employment and fertility in developed countries is no longer attributable to country-specific heterogeneity. The results are supportive of the view that higher female employment can make socioinstitutional contexts more favorable for childbearing, leading to a positive association between FLFP and TFR. Contribution: This study underscored the need for further investigation of the association between female employment and fertility, which is likely to have changed in recent decades.

The aim of this report is to provide a broad overview of the current state of gender equality in Tajikistan. While the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region traditionally surpassed many other regions in terms of gender equality, this advantage has been eroding in recent decades. Particularly in Tajikistan, concerns have been raised that men and women have unequally born the consequences of economic, political, and social transitions after independence in 1991. The report examines several dimensions of gender equality both quantitatively and qualitatively. Tajikistan has set up a legal framework that enshrines principles of equality and non-discrimination, but better implementation results require continued efforts. Prevailing social norms and patriarchal systems of decision-making limit women s ability to make effective choices be it at home or at work. The paper is structured along the following lines. The first section introduces the idea of agency that will remain an important issue throughout the report. This is followed by an analysis of disparities in human capital endowment, including health and education. Gender gaps in the Tajik labor market and entrepreneurial activities of men and women are discussed in the fourth and fifth section. The final section concludes with some policy recommendations that might be beneficial for discussions among policy-makers, civil society actors, and development partners.

The aim of this study is to investigate socio-economics determiners of the fertility in empirical sense. In this frame, income level, primary scholl enrollment of female, female labor force participation, urbanization and life expectancy of female which are thought to affect the Sub-Saharan African countries fertility rate, were all questioned by panel data analysis method. In the scope of this study, the data of 37 Sub-Sahara countries were contributed to the analysis for the period of 1991 to 2011. As to the results of the analysis it was found that negative relationship between the income level, female labor force participation, urbanization and fertility rate, besides positive relationship was found between life expectancy of female, primary scholl enrolment of female and fertility

From the end of the 1990’s and the beginning of the 2000’s, Latin American region experienced the largest female labor force participation growth in the world. Recent literature (Camou, 2015; Chioda, 2016; Gasparini & Marchionni, 2015; Klasen, 2018; Serrano, Gasparini, Marchionni, & Gluzmann, 2018) conclude that marriage and fertility trends, economic growth and education as important determinants, but agree to the need to analyze women preferences and social factors also as contributing elements. This study contributes to the literature by studying these two factors in the region, from the viewpoint of Akerlof & Kranton’s (2000) Identity Economic Theory, and Welzel’s (2013b) Emancipative Values Theory. Exploiting World Values Survey data and European Values Study, this investigation developed a probabilistic regression model where women’s preference towards egalitarian views as workingwoman is analyzed as Women’s Identity, and social constraints upon gender equality is analyzed integrating a Women’s Emancipative Values indicator. This work also compares Latin American countries results with OECD countries to note differences between the groups. We conclude that Women’s Identity and Women’s Emancipative Value are strong positive statistically significant determinants of FLFP. When compared with OECD countries, we also conclude that women in the two groups of countries share similar self views as workingwoman, but Latin America still has social constraints at play that are limiting FLFP in the region.

Reducing gender inequality makes economic sense apart from being the right thing to do. Achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls is the fifth sustainable development goal and is a top priority for governments. Countries can achieve this goal if they take appropriate steps. This note is part of a series that aims to measure the economic cost of gender inequality globally and regionally by examining the impacts of gender inequality in a wide range of areas and the costs associated with those impacts. Given that gender inequality affects individuals throughout their life, economic costs are measured in terms of losses in human capital wealth, as opposed to annual losses in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or GDP growth. The notes also aim to provide a synthesis of the available evidence on successful programs and policies that contribute to gender equality in multiple areas and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This article investigates the causal relationship between women's schooling and fertility by exploiting variation generated by the removal of school fees in Ethiopia. The increase in schooling caused by the reform is identified using both geographic variation in the intensity of its impact and temporal variation generated by the timing of the implementation. The model finds that the removal of school fees led to an increase in schooling for Ethiopian women and that each additional year of schooling led to a reduction in fertility. An investigation of the underlying mechanisms linking schooling and fertility finds that the decline in fertility is associated with an increase in labor market opportunity and a reduction in women's ideal number of children.

Reducing gender inequality could increase GDP per capita by more than a fourth in Niger by 2030. These significant economic gains would be generated by enabling women to have the same earnings as men and reducing fertility and thereby population growth. Investing in girls’ education and reducing child marriage are critical to achieve these objectives, as are investments to raise women’s participation in the labor force and their productivity at work. While the estimates of the gains presented in this study are meant only to provide orders of magnitude, they suggest that achieving gender equality could have major benefits and should be a top priority for the government.

Rapid fertility decline, a strong expansion of female education, and favorable economic conditions should have promoted female labor force participation in developing countries. Yet trends in female labor force participation rates (FLFP) have been quite heterogeneous, rising strongly in Latin America and stagnating in many other regions, while improvements were modest in the Middle East and female participation even fell in South Asia. These trends are inconsistent with secular theories such as the feminization U hypothesis but point to an interplay of initial conditions, economic structure, structural change, and persistent gender norms and values. We find that differences in levels are heavily affected by historical differences in economic structure that circumscribe women's economic opportunities still today. Shocks can bring about drastic changes, with the experience of socialism being the most important shock to women's labor force participation. Trends are heavily affected by how much women's labor force participation depends on their household's economic conditions, how jobs deemed appropriate for more educated women are growing relative to the supply of more educated women, whether growth strategies are promoting female employment, and to what extent women are able to break down occupational barriers within the sectors where women predominantly work.

The objective of this note is to provide a summary of gender-related statistics and research in São Tomé and Príncipe in the areas of human capital, economic empowerment, and gender-based violence (GBV). The data comes from surveys conducted by the national statistics office and from international databases, such as the Women, Business, and the Law database and the various databases that feed into the World Development Indicators. Whenever possible the note compares the gender situation in STP with peer countries. It also summarizes data and knowledge gaps on gender. STP has made strong progress on gender equality in human capital yet has been unable to translate this into the economic empowerment of women. While its performance on gender-related indicators of human capital are like other middle-income countries, STP’s performance on indicators related to women’s economic empowerment more closely resembles its low-income neighbors. This is partly explained by traditional gender norms, which restrict women’s income generating versus their domestic role and impede their personal safety.

Gender equality is a key pathway to ensuring lasting poverty reduction and shared prosperity. Identifying the main gender gaps that a country faces, across different domains, better informs policy design. To that effect, this report seeks to identify where progress has been achieved in increasing opportunities and outcomes for women and men in Mexico and where further policy action is required. It focuses on three areas that are critical for gender-equal access to opportunities: (a) endowments, such as health and education; (b) economic opportunities, such as access to labor, land, and financial markets; and (c) agency, including norms, representation, and freedom from violence (World Bank 2012). The report takes advantage of the existing literature as well as different sources of publicly available data for the country and aims to provide a panorama of the prevailing gender gaps and areas for work to close those gaps, covering a wide range of outcomes.

By investigating changes in the association between women’s socioeconomic status, labor market activity and fertility outcomes during the Swedish baby boom 1900–60 this study reaches three main conclusions. First, the results show that a convergence of fertility behavior occurred across female socioeconomic strata during the peak baby boom period in the 1940s and 1950s in terms of a strong two child norm. Second, the negative socio-economic gradient of fertility found in Sweden before the baby boom declined sharply among women who came of age during the 1940s and 1950s, as white-collar women increased their fertility more than all the other strata. Third, this was especially the case for women engaged in the so called ‘caring professions’ that exhibit the largest changes in behavior. The pattern found in contemporary Western contexts where women in healthcare and education have a substantially higher fertility was thus formed in Sweden already during the 1940s and 1950s. The empirical finding fit with the interpretation that middle-class women employed in the public sector experienced stronger reductions in constraints to family formation compared to women employed in the private sector. We propose that the pronatalist polices implemented in the 1930s and 1940s, especially the extensive improvements in employment protection implemented for women who got married or became pregnant in the late 1930s in Sweden, is one important factor to consider when we try to understand why especially women employed in the public sector in education and healthcare increased their fertility more than other groups.

Closing the existing gender gaps will be required to boost shared prosperity and maximize poverty reduction efforts in Peru over the coming years. Gender inequities are not only unfair from an ethical and social perspective, but also economically inefficient. Greater gender equality can raise overall productivity, improve development outcomes, especially of the next generation, and lead to more representative decision making. This review of gender issues aims to uncover the main gender gaps in the country, and to identify potential policy recommendations that could help closing them in the coming years. Chapter 1 covers the legal and institutional framework and the issue of the agency of women; Chapter 2 provides an overview the situation with regards to the main endowments of health and education; and Chapter 3 deals with the existing gender gaps in economic opportunity.

This review of gender issues aims to uncover the main gender gaps in the country, and to identify potential policy recommendations that could help closing them in the coming years.The note is an input to the development of a Gender Action Plan for the Andean Countries under the Gender Analysis Work Program.the note lays out a descriptive overview of gender gaps in endowments, economic opportunities and agency the explanation of the observed situation is outside the scope of this note.The note applies the analytical framework devised by the WDR 2012 on Gender Equality and Development. Chapter one covers the legal and institutional framework and the issue of the agency of women e.g. political representation and violence against women, time use, and attitudes towards women; Chapter two provides an overview the situation with regards to the main endowments of health and education; and Chapter three deals with the existing gender gaps in economic opportunity – labor force participation and unemployment, the quality of employment, earnings, entrepreneurship and access to finance.This review is the result of the first stage in the assessment process. The note mainly reflects an initial descriptive exercise, and will be revised after the completion of stakeholder consultations in the countries; the results of such consultations will not only help identify additional literature and research on specificissues, but also help to prioritize the key gender gaps to be addressed based on the way discussions on the issue are currently taking place in the country.

This review of gender issues aims to uncover the main gender gaps in the country, and to identify potential policy recommendations that could help closing them in the coming years. The note is an input to the development of a Gender Action Plan for the Andean Countries under the Gender Analysis Work Program.The note lays out a descriptive overview of gender gaps in endowments, economic opportunities and agency – the explanation of the observed situation is outside the scope of this note.The note applies the analytical framework devised by the WDR 2012 on Gender Equality and Development. Chapter one covers the legal and institutional framework and the issue of the agency of women – e.g. political representation and violence against women, time use, and attitudes towards women; Chapter two provides an overview the situation with regards to the main endowments of health and education; and Chapter three deals with the existing gender gaps in economic opportunity labor force participation and unemployment, the quality of employment, earnings, entrepreneurship and access to finance.The review presented here is the result of the first stage in the assessment process.This note mainly reflects an initial descriptive exercise, and will be revised after the completion of stakeholder consultations in the countries; the results of such consultations will not only help identify additional literature and research on specific issues, but also help prioritize the key gender gaps to be addressed based on the way discussions on the issue are currently taking place in the country.

Despite the remarkable increase in women's education levels and the rapid fall of their fertility rate in Iran, female labor force participation (FLFP) has remained low. Using the instrumental variable method, this paper estimates the causal impact of number of children on mothers' participation in the labor market. It finds that having an extra (unplanned) child would only reduce female participation rate for low educated mothers and mothers with young children, thus having no causal impact on most mothers' participation. This result explains why the rapid decline in fertility rates did not increase female participation; rather, other factors should be at play. It hence moves us a step forward in explaining the puzzle of female labor force participation in Iran. Policy implications are discussed.

This paper analyzes the incentives to labor supply faced by families, particularly mothers, with young children in the context of a recently introduced fertility promotion benefit in Poland. The paper is based on an adapted version of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Tax-Benefit Model, which estimates households' net earnings after taxes and social transfers at different levels of wages. Since the recent introduction of the 500 benefit, some households face steep marginal tax rates due to the benefit withdrawal rules. Single parents with two children, and second earners with one child can expect their income to increase by only 30 and 25 percent of the minimum wage, respectively, if they take up a job at minimum wage. If they must also pay for childcare, having all adults working can cause losses of up to 30 percent compared with if one adult stayed home. Although the 500 program radically contributed to reducing child poverty, in the absence of complementary reforms, these disincentives could affect more than half a million households, disproportionately in the lowest quintile. Vouchers for private childcare have been adopted by some municipalities in Poland to counter unmet demand for public nurseries. A 75 percent subsidy of typical childcare costs would restore the financial viability of low-paying work for mothers with young children. Alternative remedies include a reform of the eligibility and withdrawal rules of the 500 program.

Female labor force participation rates across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region have remained low for over four decades, despite the fact that in the same period, women's education rapidly increased and fertility rates substantially decreased. This surprising phenomenon has remained a puzzle. This study tries to provide a better understanding of this puzzle by testing whether there is a causal impact of the number of children on mother's labor supply. It uses twins at first birth as an instrumental variable to estimate the causal impact of fertility on participation of mothers in the labor market, free of bias. It finds that having more children does not reduce women's employment. The paper discusses the implications of this interesting result in understanding the puzzle of female participation in MENA and in designing policies to increase women's work.

Using annual data for 20 OECD countries over the period 1961-2014, we study whether labor market institutions (LMIs) not targeted to maternity impact the total fertility rate (TFR). We distinguish between employment rigidities (ER) and real wage rigidities (RWR), since the former reduces and the latter amplifies the response of the business cycle to shocks. Panel regressions and principal component analysis reveal that ER, such as employment protection and union strength, increase TFR. On the other hand, RWR, proxied by the centralization of wage bargaining and unemployment benefits, reduce TFR. We also find evidence that unemployment volatility reduces fertility whereas wage volatility raises fertility. Thus, to the extent that labor market institutions affect unemployment and wage volatility, they may also affect fertility. We complement our analysis with a DSGE model that incorporates households' fertility decision as well as unemployment and wage rigidities. We find that downward wage rigidities amplify real contractions in response to negative demand shocks and lead to large drops in employment and fertility.

Women represent the majority of informal sector workers in developing countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa where adolescent pregnancy rates are high. Little empirical evidence exists concerning the relationship between teen fertility and the likelihood that a woman will be employed in the informal sector. Using a panel survey in Madagascar designed to capture the transition from adolescence to adulthood, we estimate a multinomial logit model to capture the effect of the timing of first birth on female selection into four categories: non-participation, informal, formal, and student. To address the endogeneity of fertility and labor market outcomes, we instrument the timing of first birth using young women's community-level access, and duration of exposure to family planning. Our results suggest that motherhood increases the probability of employment for young women and that women whose first birth occurs during adolescence largely select into low-quality informal jobs. This effect is partially, but not entirely, mediated by the effect of teen pregnancy on schooling.

Women represent the majority of informal sector workers in developing countries. This is especially true in Sub-Saharan Africa where early childbearing rates are still high. However, to date, there is little empirical evidence on the role of early fertility in female labor force participation in the informal sector. We analyze the effect of young women’s timing of first birth on her entry into the labor market and selection into different types of employment. Using a panel survey in Madagascar, designed to capture the transition from adolescence to adulthood, and a multinomial approach, we estimate the effect of early childbearing on selection into four employment categories: non-participation, informal, formal, and student. Our results suggest that young mothers are more likely to work than young women without children. However, women whose first birth occurred during adolescence largely select into low-quality informal jobs. This effect is partially, but not entirely, mediated by the effect of adolescent pregnancy on schooling.

This paper decomposes the gender gap in pay in the Russian Federation along the earnings distribution for the period 1996–2011. The analysis uses a reweighted, recentered influence function decomposition that allows estimating the contribution of each covariate on the wage structure and composition effects along the earnings distribution. The paper finds that women are in flat career paths compared with men; the importance of observable characteristics that proxy human capital in the gender pay gap decrease along the earnings distribution; and if women’s pay took into account their educational degrees as much as men’s, the gender pay gap would disappear or even reverse at the top of the earnings distribution. The results suggest that women at the bottom of the earnings distribution should be helped to increase their labor market skills, and women at the top of the distribution should be helped to break the glass ceiling and be remunerated for their skills to the same extent as men.

This paper estimates the effect of having children on labor force participation of mothers in urban Iranian areas. I exploit sex composition of children as an exogenous source of variation in family size to account for endogeneity of fertility. Using information from the Iranian Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) over three samples, namely, households with one and more, two and more, and three and more children, I find no significant effect of fertility on female labor force participation in Iran. JEL codes: J13, J22

Unlike in the United States where fertility is found to be negatively correlated with female labor force participation, China has witnessed a decrease in both fertility and female labor force participation since the 1980s. Does fertility play a different role in female labor force participation in China than in the U.S.? To answer this question, this paper exploits plausibly exogenous variations in fertility created by the afffirmative One-Child Policy in China to estimate the effect of having two or more children on the mother's labor force participation. Using a large data set from the 1990 Population Census, we find that though OLS shows positive effects of fertility, 2SLS will report negative effects of having two or more children on female labor force participation in rural China.

Female labor force participation rates in urban India between 1987 and 2011 are surprisingly low and have stagnated since the late 1980s. Despite rising growth, fertility decline, and rising wages and education levels, married women's labor force participation hovered around 18 percent. Analysis of five large cross-sectional micro surveys shows that a combination of supply and demand effects have contributed to this stagnation. The main supply side factors are rising household incomes and husband's education as well as the falling selectivity of highly educated women. On the demand side, the sectors that draw in female workers have expanded least, so that changes in the sectoral structure of employment alone would have actually led to declining participation rates.

This paper models gender discrimination in the labor market as originating from bargaining between husbands and wives within the family. The husband-wife household bargains over resource distribution, with each spouse's bargaining power determined by his/her market income. Men are reluctant to grant women easy access to the labor market as, despite the obvious income drag on family income, gender discrimination allows the male to benefit from greater bargaining power. In a model with endogenous savings, fertility, labor force participation, and gender wage discrimination, we demonstrate how economic development, which increases the financial cost of discrimination, gives rise to a positive cycle of greater female participation, lower fertility, and higher income. We use data from the World Value Survey and the International Social Survey Program and show that economic development is negatively related to male preference for discrimination. For low levels of development, a majority of men have discriminatory views; at around annual per capita incomes of 15.000 USD there is a turning point and non-discriminatory men become the majority. We then exploit the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth in the U.S. to examine how men change their discriminatory views over time. Other things equal, men with high-income spouses are more likely to change their views on women toward less discrimination, while the exact opposite holds for men with low-income spouses. Our findings suggest that discriminatory views are indeed endogenous and lose strength over the course of economic development.

Seventy percent of West Bank and Gaza's population is under the age of 30, and their share will continue to grow in the years ahead. The aspirations and ambitions of this large and growing population of children and youth have the potential to define the future of the West Bank and Gaza. This assessment seeks to contribute to the understanding of factors driving the choices of young men and women at this critical juncture of their lives, with a particular emphasis on the roles that changing gender norms and the conflict environment are having on their aspirations for education, jobs, and forming families. Young Palestinians are moving into adulthood in a world surrounded by roadblocks and barriers, and gripped by soaring unemployment and uncertainty about what their futures may hold. Still, this generation remains optimistic and ambitious. They are pursuing high school and college degrees, and hanging on to expectations for better jobs and better lives than was possible for their parent's generation. In the face of such bleak prospects, why? What is driving these youth's aspirations for high levels of education and good jobs? To provide a broad context for the youth's testimonies, this report first takes stock of developments affecting the West Bank and Gaza over the past decade. In this period, the Palestinian territories witnessed two major episodes of conflict: the second intifada beginning in 2000 and the crisis in Gaza in 2007. Both episodes had severe and wide-ranging economic repercussions, and were accompanied by restrictions on internal and external mobility of people and goods. As a result, in the last decade, the West Bank and Gaza has witnessed economic volatility without parallel (even in comparison to countries affected by large financial crises), massive spikes in poverty, and some of the highest rates of unemployment in the world. Young people's unemployment rates are even higher, and much more so for young women. The youth's focus groups indicate that traditional gender norms remain very strong in their society, and mainly seem to be reinforced by the difficult conflict environment. Men's status as the breadwinners means that boys, especially from poor families, are likely to withdraw from school sooner than girls in order to take up income earning roles; and the weak economy intensifies these pressures.

We present a growth model where savings, fertility, labour force participation and gender wage discrimination are endogenously determined. Households consist of husband and wife, who disagree on how to allocate resources to their individual consumption. Household decisions are made by bargaining and the bargaining power of each spouse depends on the market income he/she brings home. This provides the basis for the reluctance of men to grant women equal access to labour markets despite the fact that this hurts them in terms of reduced family income. Economic development makes discrimination costlier, initiating a positive cycle of high female participation, low fertility and high growth. Our empirical study is in two parts. Firstly, we use cross-country micro data to test the hypothesis that development is negatively related to male 'preference for discrimination'. We show that men's views converge to those of women over the development process and that, for low levels of income, a large majority of men have discriminatory views. Our conclusion is that a turning point occurs at an annual per capita GDP of around $15000. Secondly, we exploit the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 to find out what cause individuals to change their discriminatory preferences over time.

The female labor force participation level in Turkey is currently very low at 27 percent compared with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD and European Union, or EU-19 averages of 61 and 64 percent respectively. This rate has been declining in the last 30 years from a level of 48 percent in 1980. This paper looks at the most recent trends and profiles of labor force participation of women in Turkey using three different household level data sources in available Turkey (HBS, LFS and TDHS) for the period 2003-2006. The paper also reports a multivatiate analysis on the probability of working for women, controlling for various characteristics.

This brief summarizes some of the significant constraints women in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) face: limited labor market mobility, a mismatch between skills acquired in school and what is in demand in the labor market, and legal or institutional factors related to cultural norms, all of which inhibit the transition from school to work. The brief identifies various policy options and outlines the World Bank's strategy for supporting governments in achieving gender parity in the region. Rigorous analytical work, experimental policy pilots and lending operations with a strong gender focus all form part of the Bank's strategy towards reducing gender gaps in economic opportunities.

This paper uncovers a counter-intuitive effect of international trade on female labor shares: whenever trade expands, sectors intensive in female labor, female labor shares drop and vice versa. According to our key assumption a rising capital labor ratio closes the gender wage gap. The paper’s mechanism operates as follows. Expansions of sectors intensive in female labor come along with contractions of sectors intensive in male labor. These contractions imply that male labor reallocates to sectors intensive in female labor. The capital labor ratio in the latter sectors drops, which widens the gender wage gap and causes a decrease in aggregate female labor shares. Based on instrumented U.S.-Mexican trade flows, we provide empirical evidence in support of our theory.

We evaluate the effect of a 2003 reform in the Spanish income tax on fertility and the employment of mothers with small children. The reform introduced a tax credit for working mothers with children under the age of three, while also increasing child deductions for all households with children. Theoretically, given the interplay of these two components, the expected effect of the reform is ambiguous on both outcomes. We find that the combined reforms significantly increased both fertility (by almost five percent) and the employment rate of mothers with children under three (by two percent). These effects were more pronounced among less-educated women. In addition, to disentangle the impact of the two reform components, we use an earlier reform that increased child deductions in 1999. We find that the child deductions affect mothers employment negatively, which implies that the 2003 tax credit would have increased employment even more (up to five percent) in the absence of the change in child deductions.

By using the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data for 42 developing countries this paper studies the impact of fertility on mothers’ employment. In order to solve the problem of omitted variable bias multiple births are used as source of variation in family size. Similarly to previous evidence for developed countries, the findings reveal that family size has a negative impact on female employment. Nevertheless, two types of heterogeneity are exposed. First, the size and sign of the impact depends on the birth at which we study the increase in family size; specifically, a negative impact of fertility is observed at the time of the first birth or in a third and higher births; nevertheless, for some samples (and definitions of mother’s employment) a shift in a second birth might have a positive impact on employment. Second, the types of jobs affected by a change of fertility differ depending on at which margin the shift in fertility takes place. Thus, while for a first birth, more informal jobs, such as unpaid jobs, or jobs that are harder to combine with childbearing (working away from home or seasonal jobs) are the ones impacted by an increase in family size; at higher parities, all type of jobs are affected by the shift in fertility.

Gender-based discrimination is a pervasive and costly phenomenon. To a greater or lesser extent, all economies present a gender wage gap, associated with lower female labor force participation rates and higher fertility. This paper presents a growth model where saving, fertility and labor market participation are endogenously determined, and there is wage discrimination. The model is calibrated to mimic the performance of the U.S. economy, including the gender wage gap and relative female labor force participation. We then compute the output cost of an increase in discrimination, to find that a 50 percent increase in the gender wage gap leads to a decrease in income per capita of a quarter of the original output. We then compile independent estimates of the female to male earnings ratio for a wide cross-section of countries to construct a new economy, in line with the benchmark U.S. economy, except for the degree of discrimination. We compare the level of output per capita predicted by this model economy with the actual output per capita for each country. Higher discrimination leads to lower output per capita for two reasons: a direct decrease in female labor market participation and an indirect effect through an increase in fertility. We find that for several countries a large fraction of the actual difference in output per capita between the U.S. and the different economies is due to gender inequality. For countries such as Ireland and Saudi Arabia, wage discrimination actually explainsall of the output difference with the U.S. Moreover, we find that the increase in fertility due to discrimination is responsible for almost half of the decrease in output per capita, and equivalent to the direct decrease in output due to lower female participation. Our basic model suggests the costs of gender discrimination are indeed quite substantial and should be a central concern in any macroeconomic policy aimed at increasing output per capita in the long-run.