Fertility and Women's Employment in Industrialized Nations

The association between fertility and womens labor force activity reflects the incompatibility between caring for the children and participating in economically productive work that typifies industrialized societies. Women who wish to participate in the labor force must either limit their fertility or make alternative arrangements for the care of their children. As a result fertility rates in most countries are below the level needed for population replacement and rising proportion of children are in non-maternal care while their mothers work. In the assumption that women either limit their fertility to accommodate their force activity or they adjust their labor force behavior to their fertility evidence suggests that women do both. A substantial body of individual-level research describes the various strategies by which women in industrialized settings accommodate their employment patterns to their fertility and their fertility to their labor force participation. The evidence also suggests that strategies vary across national settings and that the ability to combine labor force participation and motherhood varies across countries.