Reproduction

At some point, it made sense to link the growing flexibility of working hours to changes in family structure and family life, as one manifestation of the multifaceted interplay between (labor) market and society. One aspect of this topic is the relationship between women’s paid employment and fertility. Government efforts to increase both birth rates and employment rates through targeted interventions are of particular interest in this respect. Toward the end of the first decade of the 2000s, remarkable national differences could be observed—interesting both theoretically and practically—in the trends in birth rates as well as in the measures that were or were not implemented to influence them. However, a follow-up study (forthcoming) shows that since then fertility rates in all countries examined have continued to plummet more or less equally and dramatically, regardless of differing policy measures to promote employment and fertility, as well of differing levels of female employment.