Special Collection 3 - Article 8 | Pages 177–212  

Women’s Labor Force Attachment and Childbearing in Finland

By Andres Vikat

This article is part of the Special Collection 3 "Contemporary Research on European Fertility: Perspectives and Developments"

Abstract

This paper analyzes the impact of women’s economic activity, earnings and take-up of child home care allowance on childbearing, using a ten percent sample from a longitudinal register data set that covers the entire female population of reproductive age in Finland in 1988-2000. Results show that a woman’s economic activity and income were positively correlated with entry into motherhood and to a lesser extent with having a second child. This supports the notion of a common pattern of this relationship in the Nordic countries. In the light of Finland’s rollercoaster economic development in the 1990s, the effects of a change in female population composition by economic characteristics on the fertility trend were small.

Author's Affiliation

• Andres Vikat - United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), Switzerland EMAIL

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