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Estimating the Causal Effect of Fertility on Women’s Employment in Africa Using Twins

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  • de Jong, Eelke
  • Smits, Jeroen
  • Longwe, Abiba

Abstract

Women’s employment is considered essential for gender equality and female empowerment, as well as for the living standard, dependency burden, and saving patterns of households in poor countries. To develop effective policies, it is important to know whether mothers with young children who are not gainfully employed prefer to be at home and care for their children, or are involuntarily out of the labor force, because they could not prevent getting those children. In this study having twins is used as the external shock due to which some women have obtained more children than they wanted. These women are compared with those who are similar in many respects (married and have at least one child) but did not experience this shock.

Suggested Citation

  • de Jong, Eelke & Smits, Jeroen & Longwe, Abiba, 2017. "Estimating the Causal Effect of Fertility on Women’s Employment in Africa Using Twins," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 360-368.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:90:y:2017:i:c:p:360-368
    DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2016.10.012
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    8. Van Den Broeck, G. & Kilic, T., 2018. "Dynamics of Off-farm Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 276988, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
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