Couples' Careers and Fertility an Event-history Analysis of the Echp Samples of Denmark, Italy, Spain, and United Kingdom

Fertility behavior is constrained by the labor force status of both partners of a couple (married or cohabiting), and by how they distribute among them household chores, childcare, and paid work. Uncertainty about labor market prospects and associated income is also likely to influence fertility decisions. Moreover, institutional configurations specific to each country may influence the decisions taken by couples in a systematic way. This paper investigates the effects of the combined labor force participation of each partner, and specifically the effects of unemployment, temporary contracts and parttime, on second and higher order births. An international comparative approach may help to detect national patterns on how couples’ labor force status influence fertility. Event-history methods are used, where the several events studied are modeled simultaneously, and where the outcomes of one process enter as time-varying covariates in the other process(es). I use a modeling strategy that accounts explicitly for the endogeneity of the processes of labor force participation and fertility, by taking into account the correlation between the unmeasured factors across processes. A longitudinal sample of the European Community Household Panel is used for the analyses, concerning the years 1993-2000. This allows to analyze the most recent situation in Denmark, Italy, Spain, and United Kingdom. Preliminary results show significant correlations between processes in Italy, Spain and United Kingdom, but not in Denmark. This suggests that in Denmark, labor force participation and fertility are relatively independent (given the variables included in the model). After controlling for unobserved heterogeneity factors, the effect of employment on births is still negative, again with the exception of Denmark. Unemployed women have even lower birth rates in Spain and Italy, and the effects are the opposite in United Kingdom. The results show that women experiencing job instability have lower fertility, while women working part-time or in the public sector have higher birth rates. Men’s employment combined with housewifery have a positive impact on second births in United Kingdom and Italy, while in Denmark the impact is negative. In Spain, temporary jobs or unemployment of one or both members of the couple have a strong depressing impact on fertility. Finally, exit from the labor force is accelerated by pregnancy or by the birth of a child. However, entry to the labor force is not significantly affected by a birth.