MPIDR Working Paper

Women’s labor force attachment and childbearing in Finland

Vikat, A.
MPIDR Working Paper WP-2004-001, 32 pages.
Rostock, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (January 2004)
Revised March 2004. Edited version published in Demographic Research 2004; Special Collection 3: "Contemporary Research on European Fertility: Perspectives and Developments" (8): 175-211.
Open Access

Abstract

This paper analyzes the impact of women’s economic activity, earnings and take-up of child home care allowance on childbearing, using a ten percent sample from a longitudinal register data set that covers the entire female population of reproductive age in Finland in 1988–2000. Results show that a woman’s economic activity and income were positively correlated with entry into motherhood and to a lesser extent with having a second child. This supports the notion of a common pattern of this relationship in the Nordic countries. In the light of Finland’s rollercoaster economic development in the 1990s, the effects of a change in female population composition by economic characteristics on the fertility trend were small.
Keywords: Finland, childbearing, fertility determinants, fertility trends, income, labor force participation, unemployment
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