Fertility and female employment in Greece: a microeconomic model
Symeonidou, H.; Magdalinos, M.
Cahiers Quebecois de Demographie 22(2): 285-312
1993
ISSN/ISBN: 0380-1721 PMID: 12289996 Document Number: 337484
The National Social Research Center of Greece applied November 1984-February 1985 data on 3193 women to a micro-economic model which achieves more efficacious estimation and test procedures and separates useful information from political decisions. The researchers compared the behavior of women from three areas: Athens, other urban regions, and rural areas. Specifically, they wanted to examine the relationship between fertility and women's employment in greater Athens. The model assumes that each woman maximizes her utility which is a function of three factors: family size, free time (leisure), and consumer goods. The test to detect specification errors indicated structural differences between urban and rural areas and heteroscedasticity in the supply equation for work and the demand equation for children. The final model with five structural and four variance equations confirmed that employment affects fertility directly and through women's sex-role attitudes. The mean number of live births, desired family size, and ideal family size were lower in Athens, greater in rural areas, and at an intermediary level in other urban regions. Fertility in Athens and women's employment were not significantly different than that in other urban area. The differences in women's employment were much greater between towns and rural areas, probably because many women in rural areas work without a salary in the family's business. The final model did not find fertility to have an overall significant direct effect on employment but did find it had a significant indirect effect in rural areas due to attitudes toward sexual roles.