Gender-role identity in adolescence and women fertility in adulthood

In the new era of economics of fertility, the identification of the determinants of fertility has become one of the major challenges. This paper analyzes how the fertility patterns of both female teenagers’ own families and peers’ families (measured as the number of siblings) affect their future fertility choices. Our analysis distinguishes between the extensive (becoming a mother or not) and the intensive (total number of children) margin of fertility. We provide five main results. First, neither own number of siblings nor peers’ number of siblings affect whether a woman becomes a mother or not. Second, women with more siblings and women whose peers had more siblings tend to have more children. Third, the peer effect is stronger for women who reported having a less close relationship with their mothers. Forth, women that were teenagers characterized by high scores and being involved in activities related to popularity experience a negligible peer effect. Further, more communication between teenagers’ parents increases the influence of women’s own family but reduces the peer effect. These results suggest that fertility patterns of both female teenagers’ own families and peers’ families are relevant in shaping women’s identitydefining role in fertility, specially in the intensive margin; and that the relative importance of these two patterns depends on the quality of the relationships between all actors (between teenagers, between teenagers and their parents, and between teenagers’ parents).