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Fertility and mother's labour market behaviour: Evidence from the 2011 South African Census

Author

Listed:
  • Cally Ardington

    (SALDRU, School of Economics, University of Cape TownAuthor-Email:)

  • David Lam

    (University of Michigan)

  • Murray Leibbrandt

    (SALDRU, School of Economics, University of Cape Town)

  • Alicia Menendez

    (University of Chicago)

Abstract

The relationship between fertility and female labour force participation has been a subject of attention for several decades. Most of the literature focuses on developed countries and responds to the interest in understanding the evolution of the increasing female role in labour markets during the last century and the possible effect that controlled fertility may have on it. Fertility, however, is a choice variable and thus endogenous. Therefore, disentangling its impact is not straight forward and several approaches have been proposed over time in order to isolate it. One of those methods is the use of multiple births occurrence as an instrument for exogenous fertility which was introduced by Rosenzweig and Wolpin (1980) and also used by Bronars and Grogger (1994) and Jacobsen et al. (1999) in the context of developed countries and by Careces-Delpiano (2012) and Ponczek and Souza (2012) for developing countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Cally Ardington & David Lam & Murray Leibbrandt & Alicia Menendez, 2015. "Fertility and mother's labour market behaviour: Evidence from the 2011 South African Census," SALDRU Working Papers 149, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    • Handle: RePEc:ldr:wpaper:149
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    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. Vladimir Ponczek & Andre Portela Souza, 2012. "New Evidence of the Causal Effect of Family Size on Child Quality in a Developing Country," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 47(1), pages 64-106.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. Julio Cáceres-Delpiano, 2012. "Can We Still Learn Something From the Relationship Between Fertility and Mother’s Employment? Evidence From Developing Countries," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 49(1), pages 151-174, February.
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    Cited by:

    1. Ssewanyana, Sarah & Ahaibwe, Gemma & Kasirye, Ibrahim, 2018. "Drivers for early labour market transitions of young women in Uganda: evidence from the 2015 school to work transition survey," Occasional Papers 276623, Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC).

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