IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp11638.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Twins, Family Size, and Female Labor Force Participation in Iran

Author

Listed:
  • Majbouri, Mahdi

    (Babson College)

Abstract

Despite the remarkable increase in women's education levels and the rapid fall of their fertility rate in Iran, female labor force participation (FLFP) has remained low. Using the instrumental variable method, this paper estimates the causal impact of number of children on mothers' participation in the labor market. It finds that having an extra (unplanned) child would only reduce female participation rate for low educated mothers and mothers with young children, thus having no causal impact on most mothers' participation. This result explains why the rapid decline in fertility rates did not increase female participation; rather, other factors should be at play. It hence moves us a step forward in explaining the puzzle of female labor force participation in Iran. Policy implications are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Majbouri, Mahdi, 2018. "Twins, Family Size, and Female Labor Force Participation in Iran," IZA Discussion Papers 11638, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11638
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp11638.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rosenzweig, Mark R & Wolpin, Kenneth I, 1980. "Life-Cycle Labor Supply and Fertility: Causal Inferences from Household Models," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(2), pages 328-348, April.
    2. Hadi Salehi Esfahani & Parastoo Shajari, 2012. "Gender, Education, Family Structure, And The Allocation Of Labor In Iran," Middle East Development Journal (MEDJ), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 4(02), pages 1-40.
    3. Paresh Kumar Narayan & Russell Smyth, 2006. "Female labour force participation, fertility and infant mortality in Australia: some empirical evidence from Granger causality tests," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(5), pages 563-572.
    4. Robert McNown & Cristobal Ridao-Cano, 2005. "A time series model of fertility and female labour supply in the UK," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(5), pages 521-532.
    5. Julio Cáceres-Delpiano, 2006. "The Impacts of Family Size on Investment in Child Quality," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 41(4).
    6. D. Contreras & L. de Mello & E. Puentes, 2011. "The determinants of labour force participation and employment in Chile," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(21), pages 2765-2776.
    7. Barro, Robert J. & Lee, Jong Wha, 2013. "A new data set of educational attainment in the world, 1950–2010," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 184-198.
    8. Karbownik, Krzysztof & Myck, Michal, 2012. "For Some Mothers More Than Others: How Children Matter for Labour Market Outcomes When Both Fertility and Female Employment Are Low," IZA Discussion Papers 6933, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Mahdi Majbouri, 2016. "Against the Wind: Labor Force Participation of Women and Economic Instability in Iran," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(4), pages 31-53, October.
    10. Nils Braakmann & John Wildman, 2014. "Reconsidering the impact of family size on labour supply: The twin-problems of the twin-birth instrument," Working Paper Series in Economics 316, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.
    11. Majbouri, Mahdi, 2018. "Fertility and the Puzzle of Female Employment in the Middle East," IZA Discussion Papers 11322, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Ebrahim Azimi, 2015. "The effect of children on female labor force participation in urban Iran," IZA Journal of Labor & Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-11, December.
    13. Angrist, Joshua D & Evans, William N, 1998. "Children and Their Parents' Labor Supply: Evidence from Exogenous Variation in Family Size," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 450-477, June.
    14. Tiago Cavalcanti & José Tavares, 2016. "The Output Cost of Gender Discrimination: A Model‐based Macroeconomics Estimate," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(590), pages 109-134, February.
    15. James P. Vere, 2011. "Fertility and parents' labour supply: new evidence from US census data," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 63(2), pages 211-231, April.
    16. Roger Collet & Diego Legros, 2016. "Dynamics of female labour force participation in France," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-01338642, HAL.
    17. Xiaodi Xie, 1997. "Children and female labour supply behaviour," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(10), pages 1303-1310.
    18. R. Collet & D. Legros, 2016. "Dynamics of female labour force participation in France," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(30), pages 2807-2821, June.
    19. Joyce P. Jacobsen & James Wishart Pearce III & Joshua L. Rosenbloom, 1999. "The Effects of Childbearing on Married Women's Labor Supply and Earnings: Using Twin Births as a Natural Experiment," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 34(3), pages 449-474.
    20. Jacobsen, Joyce P. & PearceIII, James Wishart & Rosenbloom, Joshua L., 2001. "The effects of child-bearing on women's marital status: using twin births as a natural experiment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 133-138, January.
    21. Djavad Salehi‐Isfahani & M. Jalal Abbasi‐Shavazi & Meimanat Hosseini‐Chavoshi, 2010. "Family planning and fertility decline in rural Iran: the impact of rural health clinics," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(S1), pages 159-180, September.
    22. World Bank, 2004. "Gender and Development in the Middle East and North Africa : Women in the Public Sphere," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 15036.
    23. Mahdi Majbouri, 2017. "Oil, Laws, and Female Labor Force Participation," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 23(1), pages 91-106, February.
    24. Bronars, Stephen G & Grogger, Jeff, 1994. "The Economic Consequences of Unwed Motherhood: Using Twin Births as a Natural Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1141-1156, December.
    25. Hadi Salehi Esfahani & Parastoo Shajari, 2012. "Gender, Education, Family Structure, And The Allocation Of Labor In Iran," Middle East Development Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(2), pages 1250008-121, January.
    26. Majbouri Mahdi, 2015. "Female Labor Force Participation in Iran: A Structural Analysis," Review of Middle East Economics and Finance, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-23, April.
    27. Krzysztof Karbownik & Michał Myck, 2016. "For some mothers more than others," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 24(4), pages 705-725, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mahdi Majbouri, 2016. "Against the Wind: Labor Force Participation of Women and Economic Instability in Iran," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(4), pages 31-53, October.
    2. Öberg, Stefan, 2018. "Instrumental variables based on twin births are by definition not valid (v.3.0)," SocArXiv zux9s, Center for Open Science.
    3. Mahdi Majbouri & Sanaz Fesharaki, 2019. "Iran’s Multi-ethnic Mosaic: A 23-Year Perspective," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 145(3), pages 831-859, October.
    4. Sanaz Fesharaki & Mahdi Majbouri, 2016. "Iran's multi-ethnic mosaic," WIDER Working Paper Series 117, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Shahram Moeeni & Maryam Moeeni, 2021. "The Impact of Intra-household Bargaining Game on Progression to Third Birth in Iran," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 42(1), pages 61-72, March.
    6. Hooshmand Alizadeh & Josef Kohlbacher & Sara Qadir Mohammed & Salah Vaisi, 2022. "The Status of Women in Kurdish Society and the Extent of Their Interactions in Public Realm," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(2), pages 21582440221, May.
    7. Semih Tumen & Belgi Turan, 2023. "The effect of fertility on female labor supply in a labor market with extensive informality," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 65(4), pages 1855-1894, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Majbouri, Mahdi, 2018. "Fertility and the Puzzle of Female Employment in the Middle East," IZA Discussion Papers 11322, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Krzysztof Karbownik & Michał Myck, 2016. "For some mothers more than others," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 24(4), pages 705-725, October.
    3. Semih Tumen & Belgi Turan, 2023. "The effect of fertility on female labor supply in a labor market with extensive informality," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 65(4), pages 1855-1894, October.
    4. Krzysztof Karbownik & Michal Myck, 2012. "For Some Mothers More than Others: How Children Matter for Labour Market Outcomes When Both Fertility and Female Employment Are Low," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1208, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    5. Mahdi Majbouri & Sanaz Fesharaki, 2019. "Iran’s Multi-ethnic Mosaic: A 23-Year Perspective," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 145(3), pages 831-859, October.
    6. Anna Baranowska-Rataj & Anna Matysiak, 2016. "The Causal Effects of the Number of Children on Female Employment - Do European Institutional and Gender Conditions Matter?," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 343-367, September.
    7. Cáceres, Julio, 2008. "Keeping the best for last. Impact of fertility on mother's employment. Evidence from developing countries," UC3M Working papers. Economics we086832, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    8. Oliveira, Jaqueline, 2016. "The value of children: Inter-generational support, fertility, and human capital," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 1-16.
    9. Nieto, Adrián, 2021. "Native-immigrant differences in the effect of children on the gender pay gap," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 654-680.
    10. Anna Baranowska, 2013. "The family size effects on female employment. Evidence from the “natural experiments” related to human reproduction," Working Papers 57, Institute of Statistics and Demography, Warsaw School of Economics.
    11. Griffen, Andrew S. & Nakamuro, Makiko & Inui, Tomohiko, 2015. "Fertility and maternal labor supply in Japan: Conflicting policy goals?," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 52-72.
    12. Petter Lundborg & Erik Plug & Astrid Würtz Rasmussen, 2017. "Can Women Have Children and a Career? IV Evidence from IVF Treatments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(6), pages 1611-1637, June.
    13. Cáceres-Delpiano, Julio & Simonsen, Marianne, 2012. "The toll of fertility on mothers’ wellbeing," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 752-766.
    14. Joseph Boniface Ajefu, 2019. "Does having children affect women’s entrepreneurship decision? Evidence from Nigeria," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 843-860, September.
    15. Bhalotra, Sonia & Clarke, Damian & Mühlrad, Hanna & Palme, Mårten, 2021. "Health and Labor Market Impacts of Twin Birth : Evidence from a Swedish IVF Policy Mandate," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1391, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    16. Elham Taheri & Fatma Güven Lisaniler & Cem Payaslioğlu, 2021. "Female Labour Force Participation: What Prevents Sustainable Development Goals from Being Realised in Iran?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-17, October.
    17. Wolfgang Frimmel & Martin Halla & Bernhard Schmidpeter & Rudolf Winter-Ebmer, 2022. "Grandmothers’ Labor Supply," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 57(5), pages 1645-1689.
    18. Angelov, Nikolay & Karimi, Arizo, 2012. "Mothers’ income recovery after childbearing," Working Paper Series 2012:20, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    19. Ewa Cukrowska-Torzewska, 2015. "She Cares and He Earns? The Family Gap in Poland," Ekonomia journal, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw, vol. 42.
    20. Julian P. Cristia, 2006. "The Effect of a First Child on Female Labor Supply: Evidence from Women Seeking Fertility Services: Working Paper 2006-11," Working Papers 18233, Congressional Budget Office.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Iran; fertility; female labor force participation; twins; instrumental variable;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • O53 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Asia including Middle East

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11638. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.