Fertility and the human capital loss of non-participation
Belzil, C.; Hergel, P.
Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 61(2): 153-166
1999
ISSN/ISBN: 0305-9049 PMID: 12295493 DOI: 10.1111/1468-0084.00123Document Number: 523934
This article analyzes the earnings penalty of non-participation faced by women who withdraw occasionally from the labor force in Canada. The Canadian Fertility Survey (CFS) was used for the econometric analysis based on labor market events taking place in the late 1970s or early 1980s. The CFS is a retrospective survey of the labor market and the fertility history of 5000 Canadian women. The result of the analysis is that labor market interruptions are typically longer when explained by fertility. The distribution of time from entrance until the first interruption and the duration of the interruption reveal the importance of heterogeneity. The more educated women, in particular, return to work much faster but do not seem to work longer (before interrupting) than other women do. The earning analysis revealed that, when potential endogeneity is ignored, there exist a negative relationship between interruption duration and female earnings. Furthermore, all things being equal, women who interrupt for fertility have higher earnings than women who interrupt for other reasons, probably because interruption was driven by fertility which is considered a necessity for a large number of women.