Division of Labour in the Family and Fertility Intentions: Evidence from the Generations and Gender Survey-II

Allan Puur , Tallinn University
Mark Gortfelder, Tallinn University

In industrialised countries, there has been a move away from a male-breadwinner model towards various degrees of dual-earner models in which both women and men participate in the labour market. The theory envisions a developmental process which at the first stage leads to an expansion of opportunities for women in the public sphere and an increased opportunity cost of childbearing. During the second stage, an increased involvement of men in the family is expected to reduce the double burden of women and contribute to the recovery of fertility rates. Although the importance of changes in the division of labour in the family is widely accepted, empirical findings are not unequivocal. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the sharing of housework and childcare is related to fertility intentions, based on the newly available comparative data from the second round of the Gender and Generations Survey. Our study population is limited to couples where women are aged 18–42 in nine countries. The dependent variable is short-term fertility intentions. The explanatory variables are indices, reflecting the division of housework and childcare tasks. Our results show that the effect of men’s involvement in the family depends on societal context. In settings where the norms favour a more traditional division of roles in the family, the association between men’s involvement differ from the pattern that is expected in the second stage of the gender revolution.

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 Presented in Session 26. Flash session Fertility Intentions