Wednesday 25 July 2012

Clash of Career and Family: fertility decisions after job displacement

an article by Emilia Del Bono (University of Essex), Andrea Weber (University of Mannheim) and Rudolf Winter-Ebmer (University of Linz and IHS Vienna) published in Journal of the European Economic Association Volume 10 Issue 4 (August 2012)

Abstract

In this paper we investigate how career considerations may affect fertility decisions in the presence of a temporary employment shock. We compare the birth rates of women displaced by a plant closure with those of women unaffected by job loss after establishing the pre-displacement comparability of these groups.

Our results reveal that job displacement reduces average fertility by 5%–10%, and that these effects are largely explained by the response of women in more skilled occupations. We offer an explanation of our results based on career interruptions of women.

JEL classifications: J13 J64 J65 J24


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