Clash of career and family: Fertility decisions after job displacement

Emilia Del Bono*, Andrea Weber, Rudolf Winter-Ebmer

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

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%-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.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)659-683
Number of pages25
JournalJournal of the European Economic Association
Volume10
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 2012
Externally publishedYes

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