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Women's Wages and Fertility Revisited Evidence from Norway.

ABSTRACT: The prediction of New Home Economics of a negative effect of female wages on fertility has been tested in a number of studies, but the results are far from unanimous. This article contributes with new evidence based on registry data covering all Norwegian women born in 1955-1974 and a simultaneous hazard model of transitions to first, second and third birth. We find a U-shaped relationship between wages and the log hazard for all cohorts, however, varying in strength and across parity. In transitions to first birth, most women are likely to be on the downward slope of the curve, implying that the wage effect is mainly negative. In transitions to second and third birth, most women are likely to be on the upward slope of the curve, where the wage effect is positive. The results are not very sensitive to the omission of education and income of the spouse.

SUBMITTER: Kornstad T

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6241157 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Women's Wages and Fertility Revisited Evidence from Norway.

Kornstad Tom T Rønsen Marit M

European journal of population = Revue europeenne de demographie 20170725 4

The prediction of New Home Economics of a negative effect of female wages on fertility has been tested in a number of studies, but the results are far from unanimous. This article contributes with new evidence based on registry data covering all Norwegian women born in 1955-1974 and a simultaneous hazard model of transitions to first, second and third birth. We find a U-shaped relationship between wages and the log hazard for all cohorts, however, varying in strength and across parity. In transi ...[more]

PMID: 30976252

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Project description:In 2006, fertility in Egypt reached a two-decade low of 3 births per woman; however, by 2008, the demographic transition reversed, and fertility has remained higher at 3.5 births per woman. Low educational achievement is linked to high fertility. Education is also important in the process of women's empowerment, suggesting that educational achievement lowers fertility through gains in women's agency. However, no studies test this pathway, and evidence on the relationship between education and fertility in Middle Eastern settings is limited. Using longitudinal data from the 2006 and 2012 Egyptian Labor Market Panel Survey (ELMPS), a nationally representative sample of households in Egypt, for 4336 married women aged 15-49 years, this study estimates several linear and mediation regression models of number of births and considers whether women's empowerment explains the relationship between education and number of births. Women's empowerment is operationalized through three measures of instrumental agency: individual household decision making, joint household decision making, and mobility and one measure of intrinsic agency-gender beliefs and attitudes. Higher educational achievement has significant adjusted associations with lower fertility. However, measures of women's agency have mixed mediation associations for education and fertility. Greater individual household decision making and belief in egalitarian gender norms partially mediate the relationship between education and fertility, while greater joint decision making suppresses the relationship. Contrary to expectation, women who have more instrumental agency through more individual and joint household decisions have higher fertility than those who make fewer household decisions. However, women who demonstrate intrinsic agency through greater egalitarian gender beliefs have lower fertility than those who believe in inequitable gender norms. Empowerment programs should focus on improvements in women's education and changing women's intrinsic agency in Egypt, to lower fertility.

Project description:Background and objectivesIn observational studies, women's fertility and sexual development traits may have implications for DNA methylation patterns, and pregnancy-related risk factors can also affect maternal DNA methylation patterns. The aim of our study is to disentangle any potential causal associations between women's fertility and sexual development traits and epigenetic clocks, as well as to search for probable mediators by using the Mendelian randomization (MR) method.MethodsInstrumental variables for exposures, mediators, and outcomes were adopted from genome-wide association studies data of European ancestry individuals. The potential causal relationship between women's fertility and sexual development traits and four epigenetic clocks were evaluated by inverse variance weighted method and verified by other two methods. Furthermore, we employed multivariable MR (MVMR) adjusting for hypertension, hyperglycemia, BMI changes, and insomnia. Then, combining the MVMR results and previous research, we performed two-step MR to explore the mediating effects of BMI, AFS, and AFB. Multiple sensitivity analyses were further performed to verify the robustness of our findings.ResultsLeveraging two-sample MR analysis, we observed statistically significant associations between earlier age at first birth (AFB) with a higher HannumAge, PhenoAge and GrimAge acceleration(β = - 0.429, 95% CI [- 0.781 to - 0.077], p = 0.017 for HannumAge; β = - 0.571, 95% CI [- 1.006 to - 0.136], p = 0.010 for PhenoAge, and β = - 1.136, 95% CI [- 1.508 to - 0.765], p = 2.03E-09 for GrimAge respectively) and age at first sexual intercourse (AFS) with a higher HannumAge and GrimAge acceleration(β = - 0.175, 95% CI [- 0.336 to - 0.014], p = 0.033 for HannumAge; β = - 0.210, 95% CI [- 0.350 to - 0.070], p = 0.003 for GrimAge, respectively). Further analyses indicated that BMI, AFB and AFS played mediator roles in the path from women's fertility and sexual development traits to epigenetic aging.ConclusionsOur study suggested that AFS and AFB are associated with epigenetic aging. These findings may prove valuable in informing the development of prevention strategies and interventions targeted towards women's fertility and sexual development experiences and their relationship with epigenetic aging-related diseases.

Dataset Information

Women's Wages and Fertility Revisited Evidence from Norway.

Publications

Women's Wages and Fertility Revisited Evidence from Norway.

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