Can Immigrants Help Women 'Have it All'? Immigrant Labor and Women's Joint Fertility and Labor Supply Decisions

34 Pages Posted: 22 Nov 2014

See all articles by Delia Furtado

Delia Furtado

University of Connecticut - Department of Economics; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Abstract

This paper explores how inflows of low-skilled immigrants impact the tradeoffs women face when making joint fertility and labor supply decisions. I find increases in fertility and decreases in labor force participation rates among high skilled US-born women in cities that have experienced larger immigrant inflows. Most interestingly, these changes have been accompanied by decreases in the strength of the negative correlation between childbearing and labor force participation, an often-used measure of the difficulty with which women combine motherhood and labor market work. Using a structured statistical model, I show that the immigrant-induced attenuation of this negative correlation can explain about 24 percent of the immigrant-induced increases in the joint likelihood of childbearing and labor force participation in the U.S. between the years 1980 and 2000.

Keywords: child care, fertility, labor force participation, immigration, tetrachoric correlation

JEL Classification: D10, F22, J13, J22, R23

Suggested Citation

Furtado, Delia, Can Immigrants Help Women 'Have it All'? Immigrant Labor and Women's Joint Fertility and Labor Supply Decisions. IZA Discussion Paper No. 8614, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2529323 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2529323

Delia Furtado (Contact Author)

University of Connecticut - Department of Economics ( email )

365 Fairfield Way, U-1063
Storrs, CT 06269-1063
United States

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
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Germany

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