JESS Seminar: The Impact of Public Policies on the Relationship between Fertility, Female Labour Supply and Childcare (Cancelled)

In this work, I propose and estimate a flexible static structural discrete choice model of fertility, work and paid childcare and use it to assess the effectiveness of different policies in reversing the decline in the fertility rate without adversely affecting female employment. I use data on all couple women and find that the responsiveness of fertility and labour supply (elasticities) is smaller when the choice to use formal childcare is considered along with fertility and work. The simulations show that only policies which provide affordable high quality alternatives to domestic care, rather than direct child benefits, promote a positive relationship both between fertility and female labour supply, which is stronger for couple women at risk of having their first child, and the quantity and quality of children. Policies which empower women through higher net wages or income transfers would promote either employment or fertility.