Fertility as a Driver of Maternal Employment

58 Pages Posted: 29 Jul 2020

See all articles by Julia Schmieder

Julia Schmieder

German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin); IZA Institute of Labor Economics

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Abstract

Based on findings from high-income countries, typically economists hypothesize that having more children unambiguously decreases the time mothers spend in the labor market. Few studies on lower-income countries, in which low household wealth, informal child care, and informal employment opportunities prevail, find mixed results. Using Mexican census data, I find a positive effect of an instrument-induced increase in fertility on maternal employment driven by an increase in informal work. The presence of grandparents and low wealth appear to be important. Econometric approaches that allow extrapolating from this complier-specific effect indicate that the response in informal employment is non-negative for the entire sample.

JEL Classification: J13, J16, J22, J46

Suggested Citation

Schmieder, Julia, Fertility as a Driver of Maternal Employment. IZA Discussion Paper No. 13496, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3654933 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3654933

Julia Schmieder (Contact Author)

German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) ( email )

Mohrenstraße 58
Berlin, 10117
Germany

IZA Institute of Labor Economics ( email )

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

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