6 - The timing of maternity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
Summary
Introduction
This chapter focuses on explaining the timing of maternity, trying to answer the question: When does a young woman decide to become a mother? What conditions have to be present? Del Boca and Locatelli in Chapter 5 of this volume focus on the interrelatedness of fertility and female labour force participation. For example, they ask: What is the relationship between participation and fertility decisions? What effects do childcare characteristics have on the number of children a woman has and on the probability of her remaining at work as a mother? The question ‘When?’ is not addressed in their work, but is instead the central question in this chapter.
Decisions about investment in human capital, how demanding a career to aspire to, how many children to have, are interdependent when considering how to spend one's time in order to achieve these various life goals. Among the pioneer models, those of the economics of fertility focused on decisions about family size. These models were static, taking the whole married life of the couple as one period (Becker 1960; Willis 1973). Later models of fertility have recognised the intrinsic dynamic character of fertility decisions. But, in spite of that, for example, the Hotz et al. (1997) review on fertility models spends only one and a half pages on the timing of maternity.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Social Policies, Labour Markets and MotherhoodA Comparative Analysis of European Countries, pp. 182 - 224Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008
References
2004. ‘The changing fertility rates in developed countries: the impact of labor market institutions’, Journal of Population Economics 17: 17–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and 2001. ‘Job bust, baby bust?: evidence from Spain’, Journal of Population Economics 14: 505–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Amuedo-Dorantes, C. and J. Kimmel 2006. ‘The family earnings gap and postponement of maternity in the United States?’, in and (eds.), Education and Postponement of Maternity: Economic Analysis of Industrialized Countries, Dordrecht: Springer, 175–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2002. ‘How do sex ratios affect marriage and labor markets? Evidence from America's second generation’, Quarterly Journal of EconomicsAugust: 997–1038.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and 1996. ‘Children and their parents’ labor supply: evidence from exogenous variation in family size’, American Economic Review 88 (3), 450–77.Google Scholar
1960. ‘An economic analysis of fertility’: demographic and economic change in developed countries, Universities-National Bureau of Economic Research Conferences Series 11. pp. 209–31, Princeton, NJ: NBER.Google Scholar
1973. ‘A theory of marriage: Part I’, Journal of Political Economy 81 (4), 813–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1981. A Treatise on the Family, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2nd edn 1991.Google Scholar
Becker, G. S., E. Landes and R. Michael 1977a. Economics of Divorce.
1977b. ‘An economic analysis of marital instability’, Journal of Political Economy 85 (6), 1141–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bergstrom, T. C. 1997. ‘A survey of theories of the family’, in and (eds.), Handbook of Population and Family Economics, Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
and 1989. ‘The effects of cohort size on marriage markets in twentieth century Sweden’, in Tommy Bengtson The Family, the Market and the State in Industrialized Countries, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
, and 2001. ‘Leaving home in Europe: the experience of cohorts born around 1960’, International Journal of Population Geography 7: 339–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and 1991. ‘Human capital investments or norms of role transition? How women's schooling and career affect the process of family formation’, American Journal of Sociology 97 (1), 143–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (eds.) 2003. Who Marries Whom? Educational Systems as Marriage Markets in Modern Societies, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bongaarts, J. 1999. ‘Fertility in the developed world: where will it end?’, American Economic Review. Papers and Proceedings, May, 256–60.
and 1998. ‘On the quantum and tempo of fertility’, Population and Development Review 24 (2), 271–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bratti, M. 2006. ‘Labour force participation and marital fertility in Italy’, in and (eds.), Education and Postponement of Maternity: Economic Analysis of Industrialized Countries, 113–45, Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and 2005. ‘New mothers: labour force participation in Italy: the role of job characteristics, Labour 19: 79–121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brien, M. J. and M. E. Sheran 2003. ‘The economics of marriage and household formation’, in (ed.), Marriage and the Economy: Theory and Evidence from Advanced Industrial Societies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chan and Halpin 2003. ‘Britain’, in and (eds.), Educational Systems as Marriage Markets in Modern Societies, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Council of Europe 2002. Recent Demographic Developments in Europe.
2002. ‘The effect of childcare and part-time opportunities on participation and fertility decisions in Italy’, Journal of Population Economics 15: 549–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Del Boca, D. and S. Pasqua, 2005. ‘Labour supply and fertility in Europe and the US’, in , and , (eds), Women at Work: An Economic Perspective, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Del Boca, D., M. Locatelli and D. Vuri 2003. ‘Childcare choices by Italian households’, working paper, University of Turin and University of Florence.
De la Rica S. and A. Iza 2006. ‘Career planning in Spain: do fixed-term contracts delay marriage and parenthood?’, in and (eds.), Education and Postponement of Maternity: Economic Analysis of Industrialized Countries, 147–74, Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2003. An Economic Analysis of the Family, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freeman, R. 2000. ‘Feminization of work’, in and (eds.), Gender and the Labour Market: Econometric Evidence of Obstacles to Achieving Gender Equality, London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Goux and Maurin 2003. ‘France’, in and (eds.), Who Marries Whom? Educational Systems as Marriage Markets in Modern Societies, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2005. ‘Granger causality’, entry in Encyclopedia of Economic Methodology, Edward Elgar Publishers.Google Scholar
(ed.) 2003. Marriage and the Economy: Theory and Evidence from Advanced Industrial Societies. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1992. ‘Separate taxation and married women's labor supply: a comparison between West Germany and Sweden’, Journal of Population Economics 5: 61–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2001. ‘Optimal age at motherhood: theoretical and empirical considerations on postponement of maternity in Europe’, Journal of Population Economics 14 (2), 225–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2006. ‘Introduction’ and contributions of this volume in and (eds.), Education and Postponement of Maternity: Economic Analysis of Industrialized Countries, 1–30, Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and 1992. ‘Daycare subsidies and labor supply in Sweden’, Journal of Human Resources 27(1): 204–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gustafsson, S. and C. Wetzels 2000. ‘Optimal age for first birth: Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden’, in and (eds.), Gender and the Labour Market: Econometric Evidence of Obstacles to Achieving Gender Equality, 188–209. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Gustafsson, S., E. Kenjoh and C. Wetzels 2002. ‘The role of education in postponement of maternity in Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden’, in and (eds.), The Gender Dimension of Social Change: The Contribution of Dynamic Research to the Study of Women's Life Courses, 55–79. Bristol: The Policy Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gustafsson S. and S. Worku 2006. ‘Assortative mating by education and postponement of couple formation and first birth in Britain and Sweden’, in and (eds.), Education and Postponement of Maternity: Economic Analysis of Industrialized Countries, 259–83, Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , and 1996. ‘Women's labor force transitions in connection with childbirth: A panel data comparison between Germany, Sweden and Great Britain’, Journal of Population Economics 9 (3), 221–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gustafsson, S. and A. Kalwij 2004. ‘Economic theory of fertility, methods and empirical approaches’, in and (eds.), Education and Postponement of Maternity: Economic Analysis of Industrialized Countries, 31–64, Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
and 1990. ‘The third birth in Sweden’, Journal of Population Economics 3 (4), 235–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hotz, V.J., J.A. Klerman and R.J. Willis 1997. ‘The economics of fertility in developed countries’, in and (eds.), Handbook of Population and Family Economics, vol. IA., Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Kalwij, A.S. 2006. ‘Household consumption, saving and employment around the time of births in the Netherlands’, in and (eds.), Education and Postponement of Maternity: Economic Analysis of Industrialized Countries, 207–24, Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kantorová, V. 2006, ‘Education and entry into motherhood in the Czech Republic during state socialism and the transition period (1970–1997)’, in and (eds.), Education and Postponement of Maternity: Economic Analysis of Industrialized Countries, 237–58, Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kenjoh, E. 2004. ‘Balancing work and family life in Japan and four European countries: econometric analyses on mothers’ employment and timing of maternity’, Amsterdam: Thela Thesis.
2005. ‘New mothers’ employment and public policy in the U.K., Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Japan’, Labour 19: 5–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1996. ‘Female labour supply and marital status decisions: a life-cycle model’, Review of Economic Studies 63 (2), 199–235.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kohler, H. P. 1999. ‘The Swedish baby boom and bust of 1985–1996 revised: the role of tempo, quantum and variance effects’, MPIDR Working Paper WP 1999–2007.
and 2001. ‘Tempo effects in the fertility decline in Eastern Europe: evidence from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Russia’, European Journal of Population 17: 37–60.Google Scholar
, and 2002. ‘The emergence of lowest-low fertility in Europe during the 1990s’, Population and Development Review 28 (4), 641–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kreyenfeld, M. 2006. ‘Maternity in East and West Germany before and after unification’, in and (eds.), Education and Postponement of Maternity: Economic Analysis of Industrialized Countries, 225–36, Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRef
1988. ‘Marriage markets and assortative mating with household public goods: theoretical results and empirical implications’, Journal of Human Resources 23 (4), 462–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lesthaege, R. and P. Willems 2002. ‘Is low fertility a temporary phenomenon in the European Union?’, Population and Development Review 25 (2), 211–28.
1991, ‘Five decades of educational assortative mating’, American Sociological Review 56 (1), 15–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2003. The Transition to Motherhood in Japan: A Comparison with the Netherlands, Doctoral dissertation, University of Groningen. Amsterdam: Rozenberg Publishers.Google Scholar
Mincer, J. 1962. ‘Labor force participation of married women,’ in NBER, Aspects of Labor Economics.
1963. ‘Market prices, opportunity costs and income effects’, in et al. (eds.), Measurement in Economics: Studies in Mathematical Economics in Honor of Yehuda Grunfeld, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
1974. Schooling, Experience and Earnings, New York: National Bureau of Economic Research.Google Scholar
Naz, G., Ø. Anti-Nilsen and S. Vagstad 2006. ‘Education and completed fertility in Norway’, in and (eds.), Education and Postponement of Maternity: Economic Analysis of Industrialized Countries, 285–306, Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ono, H. 2002. ‘Women's economic standing, marriage timing and cross-national contexts of gender: the case of Japan, US and Sweden’, Working Paper, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
, and 2001. ‘Tempo effects in the fertility decline in Eastern Europe: evidence from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Russia’, European Journal of Population 17: 37–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(ed.) 1974. Economics of the Family: Marriage, Children, and Human Capital, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Skirbekk, V., H.P. Kohler and A. Prskawetz 2006. ‘The marginal effect of school leaving age on demographic events: a contribution to the discussion on causality’, in and (eds.), Education and Postponement of Maternity: Economic Analysis of Industrialized Countries, 65–85, Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Symeonidou, H. and G. P. Mitsopoulpos 2003. ‘The timing of the first, second and third childbirths in Greece’, Working Paper, National Centre for Social Research (EKKE), Athens.
UNESCO 2002. http://portal.unesco.org/
2001. Squeezing Birth into Working Life: Household Panel Data Analyses Comparing Germany, Great Britain, Sweden and The Netherlands, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing.Google Scholar
1973. ‘A new approach to the economic theory of fertility behavior’, Journal of Political Economy 81: S14–S64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1984. ‘An estimable dynamic stochastic model of fertility and child mortality’, Journal of Political Economy 92: 852–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- 3
- Cited by