The Changing Effects of Fertility on Women's Education and Labor Supply: Natural Experiments at Different Parities in Brazil

Laeticia R. De Souza , Population Studies Center / University of Campinas (NEPO / UNICAMP)
Eduardo L. G. Rios-Neto, Centro de Desenvolvimento e Planejamento Regional (CEDEPLAR)
Bernardo L. Queiroz, Centro de Desenvolvimento e Planejamento Regional (CEDEPLAR)

The rapid decline in fertility concomitantly with increasing female education and labor force participation has motivated studies focusing on the relationship between fertility and labor supply and fertility and educational achievements among women. As each child presents a different effect upon mothers’ decisions, we estimate the effects of the first, the second and the third (or more) children separately. Also, once “having children” and "studying/working” are simultaneous decisions for women, we used five events related to fetal/child mortality as fertility proxies. The hypothesis is that even though the decision of “having children” is endogenous, the loss of a child is an unplanned event. We used the 1984 Brazilian Household Survey and found that children effects are heterogeneous in terms of birth order and regions of residence. Since important changes took place in Brazil over the years, we intend to estimate these effects with the 2013 Brazilian National Health Survey dataset.

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 Presented in Session 58. Labor Market Change and Fertility