Production and reproduction are two of the most vital activities that sustain
human society. However, it is often assumed that women's participation in
these two activities is incompatible (Joshi 2). This paper will examine
the relationship between labor force participation by women and women's
fertility and will answer the question: does women's employment reduce the
birth rate? I will show that, although women's employment can negatively
affect the birth rate, family oriented government policies and the increased
availability and acceptance of childcare offsets the negative effects of
female employment on birthrate and in fact causes these two variables to
positively affect each other.
I will begin by explaining how women's employment can affect the fertility
rates. I will then analyze the trends in labor force participation by women
since the 1960s. Following that I will show how governmental policies and
changes in societal norms regarding childcare and working mothers can effectively
reverse the negative correlation between female employment and fertility.
In the next section I will examine how in Europe these policies both increase
fertility and battle unemployment. Finally, I will provide an evaluation
of various governmental efforts to keep fertility rates high.
Section 1: The Effect of Women's Employment on Fertility
Before industrialization, rural non-mechanized agricultural tasks and piece
work could be combined or performed simultaneously with childcare supervision
(Brewster 1). However, as industrialization took place, children at the
job site, factory, and office were both no longer safe and became in fact
serious impediments to productivity. As a result, women in the post industrial
age who want to or have to work - it is women who typically care for children
- either had to choose to limit their fertility or find other arrangements
for child care other than caring for the child themselves.
Research shows that on the individual level, women's work patterns are indeed
strongly tied to their family status. The presence of women in the paid
labor force does effect their decisions about when and if to have children
(Brewster 6). First, working mothers often feel they cannot be effective
parents if they have to spend more hours working and less hours parenting
children (Joshi 3). The decision to have children also often results in
fewer hours a woman is able to devote to her work, especially around the
exact time of their child's birth when almost all women take time away from
the labor force. During this period, women risk sacrificing income, promotions,
or self improvement opportunities (Brewster 7). Childbearing often competes
with education or training, searching for a better job, or establishing
oneself with an employer (Brewster 8).
Heather Joshi's research on production, reproduction, and education illustrates
this point. She shows that women's labor force participation by women affects
fertility because although a job may not prevent a woman from having a child,
it often delays the decision to become a parent. Joshi's data shows that
as it has become the norm for women in developed countries to pursue higher
levels of education and participate at higher levels in the labor force
during the early fertile years when they could be having children. Joshi
highlighted the trend that childbearing among women in their 20s has been
exceeded in numbers by births by women in their early 30s (Joshi 14). Early
motherhood is now generally confined to unmarried, uneducated women whose
alternative prospects on the job market are poor. Data from 1991 showed
that in developed countries only 16 percent of the least qualified women
had not had children, while 46 percent of college graduates were not yet
mothers (Joshi 14).
The better educated a woman is, the more likely she is to defer childbearing.
Thus, with more women pursuing careers and investing time and energy to
become trained and educated, there are fewer women choosing to have children
at an early age. By the time many women do decide that they have reached
a place in their lives when the benefits of having children outweigh the
potential costs, there is generally less time in their reproductive cycles,
and thus, they are having fewer children: i.e. a reduction in the fertility
rate.
Section 3: Trends in Female Employment and Fertility
The data from 1960-1980 for France, West Germany, Italy, Sweden, the United
Kingdom, and the United States seems to substantiate the theoretical logic
for why female labor force participation lowers the fertility rate explained
in the previous section. A cross-cultural analysis showed that during those
years there was a negative correlation between fertility and employment.
More women were entering the work place and their wages were increasing.
Thus, the opportunity cost for them to have children increased as well (Englehardt
112).
However, in the 1980s, the correlation between total fertility and the female
labor force participation turned from a negative to a positive. Between
1960-1980, there was a clear negative correlation between female participation
and fertility (Englehardt 114). However, in 1980, the total fertility rate
leveled off while the women's labor force participation continued to increase.
The relationship between these two factors became less negatively correlated.
In fact, they became more positive. The age specific fertility trends from
1980-2000 illustrate that the countries that now have the low levels of
fertility are those with relatively low rates of female employment and those
with relatively high fertility levels tend to have higher levels of female
employment Englehardt 112). But why did this sudden shift occur? The answer
lies in the macroeconomic policies that many countries adopted in the eighties
that helped to alleviated some of what are typically women's responsibilities
in child rearing, balancing parenting and making work both more socially
acceptable and manageable. The resulting positive correlation is the subject
of the next section.
Section 4: Changing the Relationship between Female Employment and Fertility
Beginning in the 1980s, many changes took place at the societal level which
made it increasingly feasible for women to manage both work and raising
children. As the labor market has evolved and women have become an increasingly
vital and influential part of the labor force, both governments and employers
have responded by shifting the nature of working life and shifting the social
organization of childcare.
Childcare is perhaps the most widely used strategy women adopted to assist
them in accommodating their family duties with the demands of paid employment
(Brewster 11). Childcare can come from a wide variety of providers such
as other family members, paid daycare or, as children age, after school
options. The degree to which childcare influences the correlation between
women's employment and fertility depends on two factors: norms about childcare
and its availability. The public conceptions about working mothers including
beliefs about who is the appropriate caregiver for a child can affect whether
women choose to enter the labor force and raise children at the same time.
Recent studies indicate that the public acceptance of working mothers has
increased (Brewster 12). Increasingly, women see childcare as a viable and
acceptable way to balance their work and family responsibilities. The two
roles are no longer considered incompatible, and women are participating
in the work force in increasing numbers.
Perhaps as a result of these changing norms, childcare has become widely
available in developed countries. For example, in France and Belgium, figures
from 1988 indicate that more than 95% of children ages 3 to school-age were
enrolled in publicly funded childcare institutions. Data from Italy, Germany,
Denmark, and Sweden reported that 80% of the pre-school children were enrolled
in some kind of public daycare (Brewster 12). Daycare has also become less
expensive. As more and more women work, there is increased political pressure
to publicly subsidize daycare options and reduce the cost to parents (Ahn
678). Also, as more women join the work force, women's wages have increased.
and the price of childcare has fallen in comparison to the average female
wage.
In addition, family policies and cash benefits are ways that countries have
been able to stem the decrease in fertility rates that result from female
participation in the workforce. All advanced industrial nations make some
type of provisions for working families (Brewster 9). There are definitely
different degrees of support depending on whether countries are more supportive
of more traditional families (the breadwinner father, homemaker mothers
and their dependant children) or whether they are more supportive of individuals
such as Sweden and the UK, whose policies tend to favor a diversity of family
forms and tend to directly encourage women's involvement in the workplace.
However, despite differing degrees of support, since the 1980's all developed
countries are witnessing the benefits of supporting families in which parents
both work while raising children.
Cash benefits related to fertility like housing allowances, tax relief,
and child benefits are all ways in which countries can support working families
and encourage fertility. Although these various policies certainly do not
totally compensate for the overall cost of having a child, there is evidence
to suggest that these policies do raise the fertility rates in countries
especially when combined with ample childcare options and employer or state
facilitated maternity leave, another policy industrialized nations employ
to slow the trend of falling fertility.
Section 4: Europe, Fertility, and Unemployment
Governmental support of working mothers does not just encourage those women
who are already in the labor market to have children but this support also
is beneficial because it encourages more women to join the labor force.
Increasing the rate of women's employment is central to the European Union
employment strategy, a strategy that was developed in 1997 in order to battle
the significant concern that European countries had about the falling and
low levels of employment (Rubery 34). European countries were very concerned
about their shrinking working aged population and the rising number of dependants
that its labor force would be forced to support. European governments are
concerned that this trend could put enormous strain on their economies if
workers are not able to save and then invest their money (thus fueling growth)
because all money would be going to support dependants.
As a result, the European Union has set a specific target rate for the employment
of women at 60 percent by 2010 (Rubery 33). The largest potential untapped
source labor is non-employed women in prime-age groups. This group accounts
for three times the share of the total unemployed labor force compared to
the number of unemployed men (Rubery 36). The potential female labor force
is doubly important because women are a reservoir of unutilized educated
laborers and are potentially the most productive employees of the unemployed
population.
The problem remains that many women work in the home rather than in paying
jobs. The European Union's goal is to convince more women that it is feasible
to take jobs outside of the home without neglecting family responsibilities.
The EU is doing this by encouraging member countries to support childcare
opportunities and implement the other policies referred to in the previous
section.
The fact that the EU has adopted this policy further supports the theory
that the female labor force population rate and fertility are not negatively
correlated. If increasing the amount of female workers reduced the potential
size of future cohorts and labor force participants because women would
have less kids, this policy would be counter productive. Future cohorts
of workers would be smaller and thus would hurt Europe's long term economic
outlook. However, the situation in Europe is an excellent example of how
the recognition that the female labor force participation rate and fertility
are not negatively correlated. This makes it possible for policymakers to
include increasing female labor force participation in their overall economic
strategies.
Section 6: Policy Analysis
There is little doubt that utilizing more of the non-working educated female
population can benefit an economy. However, the various strategies discussed
earlier in this paper to increase female labor participation without lowering
the fertility rate are not all equally effective. Government policies of
child grants or tax breaks are not as effective at keeping fertility high
as policies that encourage childcare options (Apps 583).
Child grants are intended to provide financial aid that will make it more
feasible for women to combine having children with working outside of the
home. However, child grants in fact do very little to change the net wages
which women receive. The increased government spending caused by child grants
are funded by tax increases that these same women must pay, and so their
implementation will not make a very big difference in whether women are
able to work and raise children at the same time.
On the other hand, a government policy designed to reduce the cost of market
subsidies for domestic child care reduces the cost of raising children in
a way that leads to an increase in female labor supply and fertility (Apps
583). Women will thus have more incentive and ability to work without sacrificing
having children.
Both these policies effectively encourage more women to join the work force.
However, policies that encourage childcare options rather than offering
cash incentives will be more effective at keeping the fertility level from
falling as more women decide to work outside of the home.
Conclusion:
The female employment and fertility trends from 1960-1980 suggest that an
increase in female participation in the work force can negatively effect
a society's fertility rate. However, as the trends from Europe and the United
States illustrate, if governments understand the relationship between employment
and fertility, policies that improved childcare availability and offer real
cash benefits to working mothers, can make it more attractive both for mothers
to enter the work force and for women in the work force to have children.
The fertility and employment trends from the 1980s illustrate that these
policies have effectively improved female participation in the work force
and enabled whole economies to benefit from the addition of this largely
educated and skilled work force of women without negatively effecting fertility.
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