Discussion Papers no. 624

Mother's employment and fertility in Norway

This paper concerns the effect of employment status on second- and third-birth intensities for Norwegian mothers in the period 1994-2002. Due to unobserved heterogeneity possibly affecting both the birth and the employment processes we employ a simultaneous equations approach for hazard models, originally suggested by Lillard (1993). Our results show that there is a slightly positive effect of currently being in employment on the second-birth intensity, whereas the third-birth intensity is larger for women who are currently non-employed, even when unobserved heterogeneity is taken into account. This suggests that even in a society such as the Norwegian in which there is a high compatibility between motherhood and labour market attachment there are still certain costs associated with childbearing and that this is taken into account by Norwegian women, in particular when it comes to the progression to third child.

Om publikasjonen

Tittel

Mother's employment and fertility in Norway

Ansvarlige

Mette Gerster, Trude Lappegård

Serie og -nummer

Discussion Papers no. 624

Utgiver

Statistics Norway

Emne

Discussion Papers

Antall sider

25

Målform

Engelsk

Om Discussion Papers

Discussion papers comprise research papers intended for international journals and books. A preprint of a Discussion Paper may be longer and more elaborate than a standard journal article as it may include intermediate calculations, background material etc.

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