[lbo-talk] Inverse relation between female employment and family size

[Michael Pollak]

[Or between practical feminism and family size. This is kind of
interesting, especially when you add in other data points like the US and
Germany, which both fit just where they ought to.  Someone ought to tell
the Germans they are actively going in the wrong direction if they want to
increase the birthrate.]

Financial Times; Dec 10, 2003

Countries play the dating game to halt the baby blues

By David Turner

<snip>

The conventional explanation for the baby drought is a combination of
economic growth and more women in the labour force. As women's earning
opportunities increase, the decision to have children becomes a greater
sacrifice. But that explanation no longer seems to fit the facts.

While Iceland's birth rate is the highest of any OECD European country bar
Turkey, so too is its female employment rate. And although Italy's female
employment rate is one of the lowest in the OECD it also has one of the
lowest rates of reproduction.

Ingólfur Gislason of Iceland's gender equalities council says its high
rate of female employment removes a barrier. "Even if you leave the labour
market for a few years when your child is born, you can be pretty sure
you'll be able to return."

Conversely, low employment can make the young reluctant to breed. Italy
has an exceptionally high proportion of people in their mid- to late-20s
who live with their parents, pushing up the average age at which they
start reproducing.

Getting your economy back on track is not enough to correct this, say some
experts, who believe it is no coincidence that some of the countries with
the lowest birth rates are undergoing painful cultural transitions.

The average Italian man spends only 1hr 48min a day on childcare and other
unpaid work - compared with 6hr and 24min for a woman in full-time paid
work. Italian women who choose to have a child will have to shoulder most
of the drudgery - and may think twice about having children.

<snip>

And on a different tack, but amusing in itself:

<quote>

In Japan, the cultural transition is even more marked. In 1955 two-thirds
of couples met through arranged marriages. Now fewer than 10 per cent do,
according to Naohiro Ogawa, demographer and economist at Tokyo's Nihon
University: "Dating is fairly new to the culture." Observers wonder, only
half in jest, whether the Japanese race will be the first to die out
because it is too shy to reproduce.

<unquote>