Job Displacement and First Birth Over the Business Cycle

Social Climate, Uncertainty and Fertility Intentions: from the Great Recession to the Covid-19 Crisis

The literature on fertility in context of crises considers major crises exclusively as economic experiences, however, they are also social phenomena, affecting communities, morality and social interactions. When changes in the social climate are of a sufficient magnitude, they tend to break down the social fabric and generate additional uncertainty, more of a social form, which may affect reproductive decisions beyond economic uncertainty alone. Applying Fixed Effects Models to 18 waves of the Swiss Household Panel (2004-2021), this study evaluates the relationship between changes in social climate and social uncertainty and first and second order childbearing intentions, net of economic uncertainty, sociodemographic determinants and unobserved time-invariant individual and local area characteristics. Canton-level mean and variance of generalized trust and optimism about the future are used as proxies of the quality and the unpredictability of the social climate respondents live in. Besides parity, the study explores period variation by comparing the time around the Great Recession (before, during and after) and the years around the Covid-19 pandemic. Results show that the worsening of the social climate and its growing uncertainty correlate with lower and more uncertain first and second birth intentions. Yet, important parity-period interactions emerge.

Earnings Trajectories After Divorce: The Legacies of the Earner Model During Marriage

Divorce marks the legal endpoint of a marital union. While divorce is increasingly seen as a ‘clean break’, the past marital history of the couple may nevertheless shape their present conditions. In particular, there may be a legacy of a highly gendered division of labour during marriage that may affect the ex-spouses’ earning trajectories beyond the date of divorce. Using register data from the German Pension Fund, we examine the earning trajectories of heterosexual couples who filed for a divorce in 2013 (24,616 men and 24,616 women). Using fixed-effects and matching techniques, we compare the earning trajectories of divorcees with those of a control group of married persons in the period spanning two years before and two years after divorce. In particular, we examine how the earner models divorcees followed during marriage shaped their future earning trajectories. Our results show that, on average, the earnings of a divorced woman in a male breadwinner constellation increased after divorce, while the earnings of her male ex-spouse declined. Nevertheless, large gender differences in earnings persisted: 2 years after separation, a divorced woman who had been in a male breadwinner constellation was, on average, earning 72% less than her ex-spouse. We discuss our findings against the background of recent policy reforms in Germany, which assume that ex-partners should be economically ‘self-reliant’ after divorce.

Second Birth Fertility in Germany: Social Class, Gender, and the Role of Economic Uncertainty

Building on a thick strand of the literature on the determinants of higher-order births, this study uses a gender and class perspective to analyse second birth progression rates in Germany. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel from 1990 to 2020, individuals are classified based on their occupation into: upper service, lower service, skilled manual/higher-grade routine nonmanual, and semi-/unskilled manual/lower-grade routine nonmanual classes. Results highlight the "economic advantage" of men and women in service classes who experience strongly elevated second birth rates. Finally, we demonstrate that upward career mobility post-first birth is associated with higher second birth rates, particularly among men.

Employment uncertainty and fertility intentions: Stability or resilience?

The role of employment uncertainty as a fertility driver has previously been studied with a limited set of constructs, leading to inconclusive results. We address this oversight by considering perceived stability of employment and perceived resilience to potential job loss as two key dimensions of employment uncertainty in relation to fertility decision-making. The present study relies on the 2017 Italian Trustlab survey and its employment uncertainty module. We find that perception of resilience to job loss is a powerful predictor of fertility intentions, whereas perception of employment stability has only a limited impact. The observed relationship between resilience and fertility intentions is robust to the inclusion of person-specific risk attitude and does not depend on the unemployment rate or the share of fixed-term contracts in the area of residence. We conclude that the notion of employment uncertainty includes distinct expectations towards the future, which should be considered separately to understand fertility decision-making.Supplementary material for this article is available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00324728.2021.1939406.

Economic Precariousness and the Transition to Parenthood: A Dynamic and Multidimensional Approach

Economic precariousness has taken on a central role in explanations of the postponement of childbearing in developed societies. However, most studies conceptualize and operationalize precariousness as being static and one-dimensional, which provides only a partial perspective on the links between precariousness and fertility. In this paper, we study precariousness as a dynamic and multidimensional concept, distinguishing between past and current precariousness as well as between precariousness relating to income and to employment. Analyses are based on Dutch full-population register data. We select all inhabitants of the Netherlands who left education in 2006 and follow them until 2018. Event history analyses show that current and past income and employment precariousness all have independent negative effects on the first birth rate for men. Current and past employment precariousness and past income precariousness also reduce the first birth rate for women, but current income precariousness increases women’s probability of first conception. When precariousness is both persistent and multidimensional, it is associated with a threefold decrease in the monthly probability of conceiving a first child for men and almost a halving of the probability for women. Our analyses show the need for going beyond static and one-dimensional analyses in order to understand how economic precariousness may affect fertility behaviour.

Parity-specific motherhood penalties: Long-term impacts of childbirth on women's earnings in Japan

The issue of motherhood earnings penalty has been well-documented in many Western countries. However, only a few studies discussed how earnings penalty evolves over time and varies across different parity of birth. Moreover, related research in non-Western developed countries is scant. This study contributes to the motherhood penalty literature by examining the long-term impacts (up to 10 years after childbirth) of the first and the second birth on women's employment, work hours, wage rates, and earnings in Japan. It proposes a novel research design based on the event-study approach and fixed effects regressions to quantify the dynamic effects of motherhood resulted from two consecutive birth transitions. Drawing on longitudinal data from the Japanese Panel Survey of Consumers (from 1993 to 2015), our results show that both the first and the second birth trigger short-term earnings penalties by causing a considerable employment slump upon pregnancy. In the long run, while women's employment rates recover, work hours and wage rates remain significantly lower than their pre-pregnancy level, leading to the long-term earnings penalty. More importantly, the long-term negative impacts of childbirth on labor supply and wage rates result mostly from women's first-time rather than the second-time birth transition in Japan. These findings imply that motherhood in Japan imposes long-term penalties on women's earnings, primarily by depressing maternal labor supply after their first-time motherhood transition.

The effects of unemployment on fertility

We analyse the effects of unemployment on the likelihood of having a first and second birth in Denmark. The existing studies on this topic have generated contradictory results, and have made a weak case for the exogeneity of unemployment to fertility. We suggest that firm closures constitute an exogenous source of unemployment, and adopt firm closures as an instrument for estimating individuals' fertility responses. Using a life-course approach, we exploit unique administrative data from Denmark that include all Danish residents born in 1966 and followed between 1982 and 2006. The data contain monthly information about each individual's employment status, type of employer, relationship status and partner's characteristics; as well as very detailed fertility information, including on stillbirths and registered miscarriages. We find that unemployment has a positive effect on motherhood transitions and a negative effect on fatherhood transitions, although the latter is not robust to the inclusion of controls. We find no significant effect of unemployment on second births.

Employment Instability and Fertility in Europe: A Meta-Analysis

The relationship between employment instability and fertility is a major topic in demographic research, with a proliferation of published papers on this matter, especially since the Great Recession. Employment instability, which most often manifests in unemployment or time-limited employment, is usually deemed to have a negative effect on fertility, although different fertility reactions are hypothesized by sociological theories, and micro-level evidence is fragmented and contradictory. We used meta-analytic techniques to synthesize European research findings, offer general conclusions about the effects of employment instability on fertility (in terms of direction and size), and rank different sources of employment instability. Our results suggest that employment instability has a nonnegligible negative effect on fertility. Men's unemployment is more detrimental for fertility than men's time-limited employment; conversely, a woman having a fixed-term contract is least likely to have a child. Next, the negative effect of employment instability on fertility has become stronger over time, and is more severe in Southern European countries, where social protection for families and the unemployed is least generous. Finally, meta-regression estimates demonstrate that failing to account for income and partner characteristics leads to an overestimation of the negative effect of employment instability on fertility. We advance the role of these two factors as potential mechanisms by which employment instability affects fertility. Overall, this meta-analysis provides the empirical foundation for new studies on the topic.

The Great Recession and Fertility in Europe: A Sub-national Analysis

This study investigates how the changes in labour market conditions and economic growth were associated with fertility before and during the Great Recession in Europe in 2002-2014. In contrast to previous studies, which largely concentrated at the country level, we use data for 251 European regions in 28 European Union (EU) member states prior to the withdrawal of the United Kingdom in January 2020. We apply three-level growth-curve model which allows for a great deal of flexibility in modelling temporal change while controlling for variation in economic conditions across regions and countries. Our findings show that fertility decline was strongly related to unemployment increase; this relationship was significant at different reproductive ages. Deteriorating economic conditions were associated with a stronger decline in fertility during the economic recession as compared with the pre-recession period. This evidence suggests the salience of factors such as broader perception of uncertainty that we could not capture in our models and which rose to prominence during the Great Recession. Furthermore, strongest fertility declines were observed in Southern Europe, Ireland and parts of Central and Eastern Europe, i.e. countries and regions where labour market conditions deteriorated most during the recession period. In Western Europe, and especially in the Nordic countries, fertility rates were not closely associated with the recession indicators.

A reflection on economic uncertainty and fertility in Europe: The Narrative Framework

The generalized and relatively homogeneous fertility decline across European countries in the aftermath of the Great Recession poses serious challenges to our knowledge of contemporary low fertility patterns. In this paper, we argue that fertility decisions are not a mere "statistical shadow of the past", and advance the Narrative Framework, a new approach to the relationship between economic uncertainty and fertility. This framework proffers that individuals act according to or despite uncertainty based on their "narrative of the future" - imagined futures embedded in social elements and their interactions. We also posit that personal narratives of the future are shaped by the "shared narratives" produced by socialization agents, including parents and peers, as well as by the narratives produced by the media and other powerful opinion formers. Finally, within this framework, we propose several empirical strategies, from both a qualitative and a quantitative perspective, including an experimental approach, for assessing the role of narratives of the future in fertility decisions.

The impact of job uncertainty on first-birth postponement

This paper aims to advance our understanding of entry into employment with uncertain conditions in Italy and its causal impact on the onset of the fertility process. We adopt the potential outcome approach to causal inference so as to quantify the net effect of having a first job with a temporary or a permanent contract on the propensity to have a first child within the first five years of employment. The analysis is based on retrospective data from the nationally representative 2009 Family and Social Subjects survey. Our results suggest that 7% of potential first-birth postponement among women and 5% of potential postponement among men is attributable to jobs with uncertain conditions. These individuals would have had a first child if they had had a permanent job. For women, potential postponement is elevated among those with higher education (reaching 16%), while for men potential postponement is especially visible among those with low and medium education. With this paper we quantify a non-negligible negative effect for early exposure to labour market uncertainties on potential first-birth postponement in Italy.

Unemployment delays first birth but not for all. Life stage and educational differences in the effects of employment uncertainty on first births

This study investigates how unemployment is associated with the transition to parenthood among men and women in times of increased instability in the labour market. We provide novel insights into how education and life stage might modify the link between unemployment and fertility. We focus on a Nordic welfare state, Finland, and apply event history models to a rich register sample covering the years 1988-2009 (N = 306,413). We find that unemployment or a weaker labour market attachment tends to delay parenthood among both men and women, but the association is stronger for men. In most groups, the accumulation of unemployment periods is associated with a lower rate of entry into parenthood. However, among young, low-educated women, even long-term or recurring unemployment seems to promote first childbearing, and the generally negative association between unemployment and entry into parenthood does not apply to young, low-educated men. The effect of unemployment is largely mediated by the low income of unemployed persons. Overall, our findings suggest that in a modern, gender-egalitarian welfare society, better employment prospects promote transition to parenthood in a very similar fashion among men and women, but the effects are strongly modified by education and life course stage.