Work Autonomy, Gender, and Fertility: Labour-Market Differences and Household Behaviour in Europe

This paper examines how work autonomy is related to fertility and labour-supply behaviour and whether these relationships differ between women and men. Using individual-level data from the European Social Survey collected in 2018–2019, with a supplementary analysis of the 2006–2007 survey, we relate the number of biological children, weekly working hours, and overtime to respondents’ control over how their daily work is organised. The analysis allows these relationships to vary across levels of autonomy and between genders, controlling for observed socioeconomic characteristics and country differences. Overtime is examined through separate models of whether respondents work overtime and the hours worked among those who do. The main fertility estimates display a nonlinear association: the fitted number of children initially declines and then rises with autonomy. This pattern is less clear in the sample aged 25–49 and in the earlier survey. In the main survey, the relationship between work autonomy and the number of children differs between women and men. Total weekly working hours show weaker patterns, whereas overtime hours display nonlinearity among respondents working overtime. Because the data are cross-sectional and current work conditions may not reflect those prevailing when earlier fertility decisions were made, the results should be interpreted as associations rather than causal effects.