Fertility, partners and female labour supply in Jamaica
Wright, R.E.
Genus 44(3-4): 205-224
1988
ISSN/ISBN: 0016-6987 PMID: 12282372 DOI: 10.2307/29788967Document Number: 364565
This paper examines the relationship between fertility, female labor force participation, and partnership formation using data collected in the 1975-1976 Jamaican Fertility Survey. Numerous studies in nations of the British Caribbean have documented a positive association between sexual union instability and fertility. These findings disagree with conventional demographic theory. If there is simultaneity between fertility, labor supply, and sexual union formation decisions, as suggested by economic theory, then models of fertility that assume that labor supply and sexual union formation decisions are exogenous are likely misspecified, and this may account for the observed positive association. This possibility was explored by estimating models with ordinary least-squares and 2-stage least-squares regression techniques. The results indicate that the observed positive association between the number of sexual partners and fertility may be spurious as a model that assumes that labor supply and partnership formation decisions are endogenous revealed the expected negative association. Future research aimed at examining the socioeconomic determinants of fertility in Caribbean societies will have to take this possibility into serious consideration.