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The impact of childbirth on Spanish women’s decisions to leave the labor market

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Abstract

The present paper analyzes the effect of childbirth on Spanish women’s decisions to withdraw from paid work, defined here as the transition from employment to out of the labor force due to the requirements of household production. Decisions regarding fertility and labor market participation are interrelated and depend on individual and household characteristics, as well as external variables such as the availability of childcare services. We postulate that a female’s decision to leave the labor market is taken in a household context, and thus is the outcome which maximizes household welfare after taking into account the employment and earnings characteristics of all household members. We pay special attention to the effect of the male partner’s characteristics upon the female’s decision to withdraw from the labor market. Our empirical results show that in order to better define social and labor market policies on work and family reconciliation, increased attention should be paid to the job characteristics of males given their effect on the optimal assignment of tasks within the household following childbirth.

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Notes

  1. See Alliaga (2005).

  2. Transitions from employment to unemployment, which represent 4 % of total employment flows, are not considered in this analysis.

  3. Other authors have also pointed out the lack of empirical literature analyzing the effect of male partners’ job characteristics on women’s labor market decisions (see, for instance, Esping-Andersen et al. 2007; Baizán 2007; Ahn and Mira 2001).

  4. See, among others, Bentolila and Dolado (1994), Jimeno and Toharia (1993), Toharia and Malo (1999), Davia Rodríguez and Hernanz Martín (2004) and Dolado et al. (2002).

  5. For a detailed description of the methodological changes introduced in 2005 see http://www.ine.es/daco/daco42/daco4211/menuepa05.htm.

  6. As we would expect, previous versions of the model presented here show that if the male partner is unemployed or out of the labor market, their wives would be less likely to leave the labor market. This result is coherent with previous studies such as Heckman and MaCurdy (1980, 1982) or Stephens (2002), who find that husbands’ unemployment has a positive effect on female labor supply.

  7. If we were to consider all the reasons for being out of the labor market, our subsample would comprise 29,740 women (206 additional women). This implies that 0.69 % of employed women at t − 1 are out of the labor market in t for reasons other than household production (studying, retired, disability, being a pensioner and others). As a check of robustness we have also estimated the model considering all possible reasons for being out of the labor force. The results are in line with those presented in this paper (see "Appendix 2").

  8. To control for the potential distortions of this approach on the estimated coefficients, we also estimate the probability of labor market withdrawal by including variables which proxy the male partner’s earnings. The results are available upon request from the corresponding author.

  9. Using microdata from the Spanish Structure of Earnings Survey, we have estimated a wage equation for women aged 20–44. As covariates, the regression includes age, age squared, educational attainment, seniority in the firm, type of contract, and regional and occupation dummies. Using the estimated wage, we grouped the 66 occupations into four categories from “high earnings” to “very low earnings”. We have used the classification derived from this procedure to group woman’s occupation in t − 1 in the EPA. See "Appendix 3" for a detailed description of the classification.

  10. For those women that were working at t − 1 and continue working in t but in a different company (3 % of the entire sample), we do not know their exact seniority in the previous firm. In these cases we have used their seniority in t as their value for t − 1. This could imply that for these women, seniority could be under-measured. As the majority of workers who change companies are workers with short periods of seniority and also very high rates of temporary contracts, the potential under-measurement is very slight.

  11. During the period of analysis the maximum duration of a fixed-term contract in the Spanish legislation was 3 years.

  12. Other authors, such as Oreffice (2007), have also highlighted the delay and reduction of fertility caused by birth control technologies and abortion laws.

  13. See Esping-Andersen et al. (2007), Kögel (2004) and Ahn and Mira (2002) for a review of the change in the relationship between fertility and education.

  14. We also have estimated the model for the subsample of married women and the results are very similar (see "Appendix 1"). Due to the lack of observations, we have not estimated the model for the subsample of non-married women.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Shoshana Grossbard, the editor, as well as three anonymous referees for their very valuable comments and suggestions. We are also grateful to Maite Blázquez (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) for her useful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. All remaining errors are the responsibility of the authors. We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Consejería de Educación y Empleo de la Comunidad de Madrid (“Panorama Laboral Project”). Ainhoa Herrarte also thanks the financial support provided by the Spanish Ministry of Education through grant ECO2008-04813 (Plan Nacional I + D + I, 2008–2011).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economic Analysis (Economic Theory and Economic History), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Cantoblanco, 28049, Madrid, Spain

    Ainhoa Herrarte, Julián Moral-Carcedo & Felipe Sáez

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  1. Ainhoa Herrarte
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  2. Julián Moral-Carcedo
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  3. Felipe Sáez
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Correspondence to Ainhoa Herrarte.

Appendices

Appendix 1

See Table 4.

Table 4 Joint estimation of women’s job withdrawal decision and maternity decision (bivariate probit model), married women
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Appendix 2

See Table 5.

Table 5 Joint estimation of women’s job withdrawal decision and maternity decision (bivariate probit model). All reasons of being out of the labor force
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Appendix 3

See Table 6.

Table 6 Occupation classification for women
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Herrarte, A., Moral-Carcedo, J. & Sáez, F. The impact of childbirth on Spanish women’s decisions to leave the labor market. Rev Econ Household 10, 441–468 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-012-9151-z

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