The impact of individual and aggregate unemployment on fertility in Norway

By Ø. Kravdal. 2002

219 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Continuous-time hazard models are estimated from register-based birth, migration, education and unemployment histories for the complete Norwegian population, linked with aggregate data for municipalities. The analysis covers the period 1992-98. First-birth rates are slightly higher among women who had been unemployed twelve months before than among others, whereas higher-order birth rates are slightly lower. Although men’s unemployment has a more pronounced negative effect, according to paternity rate models, the overall conclusion is that unemployment in Norway has had a negligible impact on fertility through individual-level effects. Aggregate-level effects are more important. Higher-order birth rates are lower in municipalities where men’s or women’s unemployment is high than elsewhere. All in all, the peak unemployment level of 6% experienced in 1993 is found to be associated with a reduction of about 0.08 in total fertility. The results accord well with economic theories for first and higher-order births that are based on the assumption that women are still the primary caretakers.

Subfields: Demography, General Health Professions, Health

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/831218cabe2d341d86420f4a754adfcbb8dd158d

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Citations in the corpus

The End of “Lowest‐Low” Fertility? (2009, background): “Higher levels of aggregate unemployment have been repeatedly found to depress fertility levels, even when the individual employment situation was controlled for (Adsera 2004 and 2005; Kravdal 2002; d’Addio and d’Ercole 2005).”
On the Changing Correlation Between Fertility and Female Employment over Space and Time (2002, background): “…mixed results: Andersson (2001) reports a stronger income effect for individual female unemployment in Sweden during the 1980s and 1990s, while Kravdal (2002) finds a slightly stronger substitution effect for individual unemployment for first births in Norway in the period 1992–1998, and a…”
Why do people postpone parenthood? Reasons and social policy incentives. (2011, background): “Examining the ﬂuctuating fertility trends in the 1980s and 1990s in Sweden, Andersson (2000) demonstrated that women in more economically uncertain positions with low levels of income and students had lower and postponed fertility.”
Uncertainties in Female Employment Careers and the Postponement of Parenthood in Germany (2010, background): “Many studies have addressed the role of employment in fertility transitions (Felmlee, 1993; Kravdal, 1994, 2002; Liefbroer and Corijn, 1999; Santow and Bracher, 2001; Meron, Widmer and Shapiro, 2002; Budig, 2003; Vikat, 2004; Kurz, Steinhage and Golsch, 2005; Schmitt, 2005; Diewald and Duentgen,…”
The Influence of Employment Uncertainty on Childbearing in France: A Tempo or Quantum Effect? (2012, unknown): “…the impact of male unemployment, but all have highlighted that men’s unemployment has a more pronounced negative effect than that of women (Kravdal 2002 for Norway; Lundström 2009 for Sweden; Tölke and Diewald 2003 and Özcan, Mayer and Luedicke 2010 for Germany; Mills, Blossfeld and…”