Clash of Career and Family: Fertility Decisions after Job Displacement
Sprache des Titels:
Englisch
Original Kurzfassung:
In this paper we investigate how career considerations may affect fertility decisions in the presence of a temporary employment shock. We compare the birth rates of women displaced by a plant closure with those of women unaffected by job loss after establishing the pre-displacement comparability of these groups. Our results
reveal that job displacement reduces average fertility by 5 to 10%, and that these effects are largely explained by the response of women in more skilled occupations. We offer an explanation of our results based on career interruptions of women.