The penultimate section turns to the issue of causality in the relationship between fertility and female labor force participation. The traditional model of family time sharing does not apply to all families by any means. The effects on female labor force participation are then followed by considering the effect of a change in the demand for children on the shadow price of women's time.
In this case, the increase in women's wages creates only a price effect: TJ ZcwF is negative. Similar arguments can be made for the effect of an increase in male wages on the demand for children where. In this case, the effect of an increase in men's wages on the demand for children is definitively positive, since both the price effect and the income effect are now positive.
The effect on women's labor force participation of an increase in men's wages is also quite clear: it leads to an increase in the demand for all normal household end goods (including children) and therefore increases the shadow price of women's time. A drop in temporary income is likely to delay the demand for children.
The data
First, women are segregated in occupations for which there are relatively more jobs in larger urban areas. While this effect can be partially captured by a variable measuring the percentage of women in the service sector, there is also a greater supply of part-time work and shift work in larger urban areas, which may also increase female participation. While many of their spouses may do farm work, they may be counted in the census as doing "unpaid household work" rather than "relatives helping without pay".
6 The degree of urbanization is thus a last possible explanatory variable of fertility and labor participation with a negative effect on the former and a positive effect on the latter. When considering regional variations in participation, we should consider the effect of age composition, as female labor participation shows a well-known and markedly bimodal age profile (eg, Poot, 1988). Therefore, the participation variable is defined as the difference between the observed employment rate of women and the expected employment rate of women by age.
The observed participation rate is the share of women aged 15 and over who are in the labor force. The labor force consists of all women who work one hour or more per week for pay, gain or as relative help, plus those looking for active work.9 The regional age-expected participation rate is calculated assuming that age group by age group The female labor force participation rate in a region is identical to the corresponding national rate. The determinants of hours worked in the female labor force are investigated by Harris and Raney (1991) using disaggregated 1986 census data.
Our fertility variable is preferred over a census measure of fertility, such as the number of infants in a region at the time of the census divided by the number of women aged 15–45, because such measures are sensitive to the age composition of the population. regional population. The degree of urbanization, measured by the share of the population living in municipalities with 10,000 inhabitants or more. Given that fertility and female labor force participation are assumed to be part of the same demand system, we expect the effect of the variable on labor force participation to be opposite in sign to the effect of this variable on fertility.
If there were to be a direct causal relationship between fertility and female labor force participation, and assuming that this relationship could be identified, reduced form estimation could lead to coefficients some of which have opposite signs to those given in Table 1 become
Regression models
The labor force participation response to a one standard deviation increase in the wife's own wage is about four times larger than the response to a partner's wage increase.14. Female labor force participation is also significantly higher in more urbanized regions, as can be seen from the URBANI coefficient. In general, the standard economic theory of the distribution of time is not confirmed by the fertility equation, but we will see below that this is partly due to the neglect of a time-varying structure in the model.
For example, Slutsky's equations predict that when most women are already participating, the income effect of an increase in women's wages becomes important. Therefore, we expect the coefficient of FEW AGE in the fertility equation to become less negative. Nevertheless, these columns show that there has indeed been a change in the wage and income elasticities on female fertility and labor force participation.
As expected, the change in the fertility equation is in the opposite direction to the change in the participation equation. However, an F-test of structural change in the coefficients of MYMALE and FEW AGE together is less conclusive: the test supported structural change in the case of the labor force participation equation, but not in the case of the fertility equation.18. A standard F-test of different coefficients in each of the three periods was not significant at the 5 percent level in the FLFPRT comparison, nor in the FERTRT comparison.19.
In the pooled cross-section of census data that we used for the empirical analysis in this paper, the simple correlation coefficient of the relationship between fertility and female labor force participation is -0.419. When labor force participation was added as an additional explanatory variable in the fertility equation, Mincer found its coefficient to be insignificant and concluded that there is no direct causal relationship between fertility and female labor force participation. These results suggest that there is no "chicken or egg" problem and that Mincer's (1962) classic conclusion that fertility and labor force participation are inversely related because they are affected in opposite ways by the same economic variables has validity in the New Zealand context.
In the New Zealand case, Hyman (1979) found that fertility, measured by the average number of children per married woman in a region had a downward effect on female labor force participation, but the effect was only significant in a subset of the regression. specifications taken into account. Using 2SLS, the coefficients are numerically almost the same as in columns 3 and 4, but FLFPRT and FEW AGE in the FER1RT equation are only. Further speculation about causality in the relationship between fertility and female labor force participation is probably not very fruitful without an explicitly dynamic approach where it is clear what should be considered predetermined, what should be the role of expectations, and at what length of time is available for empirical verification .
Conclusions
The positive coefficient would be consistent with Hokkie and Khawaja's finding (1984, p.27) that low income in their New Zealand regional cross-section was incompatible with high fertility levels. As in other areas of economics, the choice of exogenous variables in the economics of fertility and labor supply depends on the specific research questions and the limitations of the available data (see e.g. Turchi, 1984, pp. 347-348 in response to Schultz's demand system approach). When we consider a period analysis in which at a certain point in time the number of children acquired in the past and any previous involvement in the labor market are given, the effect of the presence of children on labor supply will be stronger than the effect of labor supply on fertility.
As labor force participation continues to be the way to gain market income and financial independence, the depressed state of the New Zealand labor market with rising unemployment and falling labor force participation is a serious issue. At the same time, a reversal towards an increasing TFR has occurred in the last few years, not only in New Zealand, but also in other developed countries such as Sweden. The results of the current paper suggest that the two phenomena are interrelated, but further research is needed as the traditional explanation for the rising fertility is simply one of age cohort effects and changes in the timing and spacing of children.
Intriguingly, however, Becker and Barro's New Classical models also correctly predict rising fertility in New Zealand based on increases in real interest rates, the low level of total factor productivity and the fall in social benefits. The reluctance to release a sample of the New Zealand Census Unit records with location features and certain outliers removed, to preserve confidentiality, is to be regretted. For example, such data would easily allow for the estimation of individual income functions, on which surprisingly little empirical work has been done in New Zealand.
If so, New Zealand would simply follow the example of other countries, such as in Western Europe, where this idea was accepted more than a decade ago. An Economic Analysis of Fertility", in: Demographic and Economic Change in Developed Countries, NBER, Princeton, NJ. 1981), A Treatise on the Family, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. DEPARTMENT OF STATISTICS (1982), Regional Summary, New Zealand Census of Population and Dwellings 1981, Regional Statistics Series, Bulletin 10, Wellington.OF STATISTICS (1987), Regional Summary, New Zealand Census and Dwellings 1986, Series B, Report 24, Wellington.
Participation and the Supply of Hours for New Zealand Females in 1986 (With an Emphasis on Differences Across Ethnic Groups)", in: Proceedings of the Sesquicentennial Conference of the New Zealand Association of Economists, NZAE, Wellington. Bedford (eds.) The Business of Population, New Zealand Demographic Society, Wellington International Migration and the New Zealand Economy, Institute for Policy Studies, Victoria University of Wellington POPULATION MONITORING GROUP (1985), The New Zealand Population: Trends and Their Policy Implications, 1985, PMG Report No.
