The Influence Of Fertility On Female's Labor Supply

In China,studies about relationship between female labor supply and fertility are mainly focused on “child-rearing”,like availability of grandparents and household economics.Few articles talk about fertility pattern.Foreign works about fertility abound,but with unique policy and culture,applicability for China is still questionable.Even in south Asia,there are differences among Chinese women,Japanese and Korean women in their conception of childbirth and labor.Since China further relaxed its family planning policy and proposed the universal two-child policy,more women may choose to have two children.Effects like age at first birth,number of births and birth interval may spread or intensify.This thesis studied the influence of fertility on women's labor decision-making and labor income.Based on China Family Panel Studies(CFPS)in 2016,this study distinguished rural and urban sample and applied Binary Logistical Regression,Heckman Two-step Estimation and Linear Regression model,as well as Propensity Score Matching to estimate robustness and instrumental variables to solve two-way causality problems.Firstly,the article discussed the overall impact of fertility,which showed that fertility had a negative effect on the labor decision-making and labor income for both urban and rural women.Secondly,the negative influence of the increase of number of births on labor decision-making and labor income was verified.Thirdly,respectively adding age at first birth and birth interval as the interaction,the results indicated that neither delaying the age of first birth nor greater birth spacing did not significantly reduce the negative impact of women's labor status led by the increasing number of births.On the contrary,for rural women,the positive effect of greater birth interval on labor decisionmaking and labor income would be inhibited with increasing number of births.Finally,the article divided the life stage after childbirth according to the age of children.The results show that the younger children were,the less likely mother were to participate in the labor force and the less they earned.In urban area,fertility had a much longer impact on labor decisions.Difference in labor decision-making for rural women was not significant after children were 6 years old,while for urban women,it continued until the age of 15 years old.In rural area,fertility had a much longer impact on labor income.The income gap of urban females was not significant after children were 3 years old,and for rural females,the impact would last to 6 years old.The above results showed that fertility could have a long-term negative impact on Chinese women's labor decision-making and labor income.Currently,delaying the age of primary childbirth or prolonging the interval between births has not effectively alleviated this situation.Therefore,in order to ensure the effectiveness of the two-child policy,government should consider how to enhance women's labor rights and interests from a practical perspective.