Job insecurity and fertility in Europe

This paper studies the extent to which the job insecurity brought about by the Great Recession has had an impact on fertility decisions across Europe. My results rely not only on objective measures of job insecurity (e.g., the unemployment rate or the ratio of workers made redundant in their last job), but also on aggregate perceptions of job precariousness (e.g., the percentage of workers who say they are looking for another job because they fear they will lose their current position, or the ratio of unemployed who say they are not seeking work because they believe there is none available). Main results indicate that unemployment, long-term unemployment and the impossibility of finding a full-time job are the three indicators with the strongest link to reduced fertility over the period. However, results vary by age group, gender, and especially income, immigrant origin and country cluster. More importantly, my findings show that the Great Recession made the chances of childbearing more unequal, depending on socio-economic background.