Introduction

• Low fertility levels

• Should we introduce explicit policies to increase fertility?

• Timing changes: major component of the low levels of period fertility in countries

  • Women have children older: decreases TFR

Institutions and policies

• Institutions: set of norms or rules, formal or informal, which guide relationships among role occupants in areas of structured social interactions and organizations

• Policies: formal norms or rules within institutions, and exist until formally changed

• Appropriate macro units for studying institutions: multi-country units + sub-national units

The importance of timing

• Timing changes: strongly influence cohort size

• Feedback loop though the low-fertility trap hypothesis: postponement of fertility produces small cohorts and children from these small cohorts may grow up knowing many adults who had only 1 child or no children

• Timing and number issues are positively correlated: later means fewer

Childrearing not childbearing

• Childrearing: generates incompatibility with other roles

• Increase in the time mothers spend caring for their children - active care

• Supervisory child care: mother has the responsibility of ensuring the appropriate supervision is in place

  • Reducing parental supervisory time

    • Child care centres

    • Affordable and high quality centres

    • Help from family members

    • Shift work

    • Availability of part-time jobs

    • Convenient school hours

The transition to adulthood

• Social norms: play a role in the sequencing of events

Education

• Education occupies more young adult years of men and women

• Increase in educational enrollment

  • Led to women’s preferences for establishing themselves in the labour market prior to becoming mothers

• Spread of education: women postpone childbearing

• Starting schooling at a younger age: earlier start of childbearing

Education: re-entry

• Important factor: extent to which it is possible to return to school once one has left for a period of time

• Openness of the educational system

School-to-work transition

• More vocationally-specific education systems may lead to earlier childbearing

  • It can also lead to a mismatch between labour supply and demand, leading to under-employment

• Long search times for employment lead to delayed childbearing

Work: re-entry

• Important factors: maternity leaves, policies, openness of the labour market

• Family leaves: delay entering parenthood

• Mothers suffer a substantial penalty when they return to the labour market

• Uncertainty to find a job after childrearing: women postpone childbearing

Jobs versus careers

• Higher level of education: more chances to want a career as opposed to having a job

• Availability of part-time jobs: ease mother’s re-entry into the labour market

  • These are not career-type jobs

Housing

• Inability to obtain appropriate living quarters likely postpones childbearing

• Independent household = necessary pre-condition for having children

  • Not affordable nowadays

• Couples in single-family homes have faster entry into parenthood than those in apartments or other housing types