Nicole M. Fortin Department of Economics University of British Columbia

1. The Impact of Gender Role Attitudes on Women's Labor Market and Fertility Decisions:The Persistent Appeal of Housewifery Nicole M. Fortin Department of Economics University of British Columbia American Association of Population March 2007

2. Stylized Facts of Interest • After two decades on spectacular gains, in many OECD countries since the mid 1990s, • progress in the gender earnings gap has more or less stalled in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, the United States and Sweden; • there are also been a stabilization in female labour force participation (FLP) in Canada, Finland, Norway, Sweden, the United States and the United Kingdom; • the fall in fertility rates that started in the 1960s with the massive entry of women in the labor market seems to have bottomed out in some high FLP countries, such as Belgium, France, Denmark, the United States.

3. Stylized Facts of Interest • The fact that this stabilization has occurred in many different countries under different economic conditions makes one suspicious that more than the usual economic factors (increases in women’s wages) may be at play. • When described in terms of changes across cohorts, the spectacular rise in female labor force participation coincides with the behavior of cohorts who gained access to reliable family planning (Pill, IUD, abortion) • Goldin (2004), Goldin and Katz (2002) and Bailey (2006) have provided compelling evidence that changes in female labour market outcomes of cohorts born from late 1940s on are due to innovation in contraception.

4. Source: Bailey (2006) for the United States Changes in Labor Force Participation by Birth-Cohort

5. Motivation • There is then the possibility that we have simply exhausted the labor market effects of the “Pill” revolution • A difficulty however with the “Pill hypothesis” is that this contraceptive innovation happened at the same time as other changes, more importantly the “Women’s Liberation Movement”, • which aimed to liberate women from domesticity and open up labor market opportunities for women • Yet in recent years, • “Feminism” has begun to carry negative connotations • Housewifery (a la Martha Stewart) and “intensive mothering” are on the rise

6. Motivation • The popular press (Belkin, 2003; Wallis, 2004; Story, 2005) has suggested the notion that women are increasingly “opting out” of employment when they have children. • Sociologists (Cotter, Hermsen and Vanneman, 2006) wonder whether we are witnessing “The End of the Gender Revolution” as an ideological movement. • Are women increasingly staying home and having more babies? If so, attitudes and values are at the origin of this trend?

7. Changes in Gender Attitudes by Cohorts Source: Vanneman (2006)

8. Motivation • In Fortin (2005), I found a stabilization in attitudes towards traditional gender roles among recent cohorts across OECD countries. • There was suggestive evidence that perceptions of women’s role as homemakers could be implicated in the recent slowdown of the gender convergence in pay. • Here, I attempt to probe further the impact of the persistent appeal of housewifery on women’s employment status and their fertility decisions.

9. Motivation: Perspectives from Economic Theories • Recent economic theories (Akerlof and Kranton, 2000) have incorporated the role of identity in economic decisions. • Women entering the labor market may have partly embraced men’s identity as breadwinners. • But women may be uneasy about renouncing their traditional identity as mothers and homemakers and/or they may be facing an identity conflict, sometimes referred to as the “working mother’s guilt”. • As this identity conflict is exacerbated by the stresses of living in two-earner families and perhaps negative feedback from the labor market, • the traditional model of the family where the woman’s salient identity is based in the home and in motherhood may appeal to younger cohorts of women

10. Objective of the Paper • The main objective of the paper is to test the relative importance of • traditional gender roles • equalitarian views • along with other sources of existential meaning (what is important in life) as determinants of women’s employment status and fertility (number of children) 1) using longitudinal data from a single cohort of US women 2) using pooled (over time) cross-sectional data for 24 OECD countries

11. Preview of the Findings: Employment Status • Among the NLS72 cohort (birth cohort 1954-55), • Traditional gender roles attitudes in 1979 are strongly negatively correlated with employment status in 1986 • Equalitarian views in 1979 are positively correlated with employment status in 1986, but are not always statistically significant • Other values (usefulness to others and society) are almost as strongly correlated with employment status • Across OECD countries, • Traditional gender role attitudes are negatively correlated with women’s employment rates. • more significantly so using lagged values • Anti-equalitarian attitudes are also quite significantly negatively correlated with women’s employment rates

12. Preview of the Findings: Fertility • Among the NLS72 cohort (birth cohort 1954-55), • Traditional gender role attitudes and the importance of people/family composite are very strongly associated with higher fertility • Equalitarian views and the importance of money/work are negatively associated with the fertility, but are not robust to the inclusion of controls • Across OECD countries, • Traditional gender role attitudes (either as an identity story or as social norms) have a significant positive impact on fertility • Anti-equalitarian views are not significant

13. Preview of the Findings: Summary • Traditional gender roles attitudes, either as indicators of salient identities or as social norms, continue to play a dominant role in women’s labor market and fertility decisions. • Equalitarian views have relatively little explanatory power, especially once educational attainment is controlled for. • To the extent, that there is indeed an “opting-out” phenomena, it may come more from the persistent appeal of housewifery than from a sag in equalitarian views

14. Data – United States • To capture pre-market characteristics and circumvents problems associated with ex-post rationalization, I appeal to a 14-year educational longitudinal survey • The National Longitudinal Studies of the High School Class of 1972 (NLS72) was by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) of the U.S. • Participants were seniors in high school (18 year olds) in the spring of 1972. Follow-up surveys were conducted in 1973, 1974, 1976, 1979, and finally 1986. • I use employment status and observed number of children in 1986 when most respondents were 32 year olds.

15. NLS-72:Questions on Gender Role Attitudes

16. NLS-72:Questions on Work Values

17. NLS-72:Questions on Values

18. NLS-72:Composite Gender Role Attitudes and Values • Answers to questions on gender role attitudes and values are averaged into composites with the “alpha” procedure used by psychologists

19. Empirical Strategy – Longitudinal Data:The Issue of Causality • A difficult question is the issue of causality. • Are the women’s employment and family decisions based on pre-market attitudes, or are these attitudes subsequent rationalizations to previous labor market and family choices? • This difficulty is addressed by using attitudes and values observed five years (at or before age 25) before the employment status and the number of children is observed (around age 32)

20. Empirical Strategy – Longitudinal Data: Individual Level Regressions • Assuming linear preferences, the individual estimating equation takes the form • Yit = α0 + αgGit-5 + αjJit-5 + αxXit + εit • where Yit is the outcome of interest • where Git-5 andJit-5are gender role attitudes and work values observed 5 years earlier • where Xiti individual characteristics such as education, marital status, • The models are estimated by OLS, with a Probit Model for employment status and with a Poisson Model for number of children

21. Table 4. Determinants of Women’s Employment Status in 1986

22. Empirical Results – Longitudinal Data : Women’s employment rates in the US • Equalitarian views (in 1979) are positively correlated with women’s employment status (in 1986), but quite weakly. • Traditional gender role attitudes are negatively correlated with women’s employment status. • Their effect is 5 times as large as the effect of equalitarian views • The composite on the importance of helping others, being useful to society, etc. is also significantly positively correlated with employment status. • Other important correlates include the number of children, own other income, educational attainment from college and beyond.

23. Table 5. Determinants of the Number of Children at Age 32 (1986)in the United States

24. Empirical Results – Longitudinal Data : Women’s Fertility at age 32 in the US • Traditional gender role attitudes and the importance of people/family composite are very strongly associated with higher fertility, even after controlling for education, marital status, employment status and other sources of income • By contrast, equalitarian views and the importance of money/work are negatively associated with the number of children at age 32, but their statistically significance is not robust to the inclusion of controls

25. Data – Cross-Country • The paper uses three waves of the World Value Surveys (WVS): the 1990-93 and 1995-97 waves (ICPSR 2970), and 1999-2001 wave (ICPSR 3975), which also includes answers to the European Value Survey (EVS). • Here, because I am interested in post female mobilization trends I limit my analysis to 24 OECD societies/countries. • Data on total fertility rates for these countries for periods corresponding roughly to the ones of the WVS were available from the OECD.

26. WORLD VALUE SURVEYS:Questions on Gender Role Attitudes

27. Cross-Country Descriptive StatisticsTable 3. Average Gender Role Attitudes and Work Values Across Birth Cohorts

28. Empirical Strategy – Cross-Country: The Issue of Causality • Do individual preferences dictate labor market and family choices or are individual choices are conditioned by country-specific social norms and institutions? • At the country-level, reverse causality is a problematic issue. • Are women’s employment rates lower in some countries because “the man as main breadwinner” is the norm and “scare jobs are given to men first,” • or have women’s low employment rates in some countries resulted in men being the sole provider for most families and thus getting priority for jobs?

29. Empirical Strategy – Cross-Country: The Issue of Causality • Across countries, this issue is addressed by • using lagged attitudes to check for reverse causality • using country-specific average male attitudes, which are less likely suffer from endogeneity problems. • robust standard errors clustered by country are used to adjust for differences in the variance of individual heterogeneity by country. • including a measure of child care support used by Jaunotte (2003) (country fixed-effects saturates the model.)

30. Empirical Strategy – Cross-Country: Country-level Regressions • At the country level, I consider average outcomes of interest • E[Y]ct = α0 + αg E[G]ct + αx E[X]ct + Fc + t + εct • where E[Y]ct is the average outcome of interest • where E[G]ct are average female or male gender role attitudes • where E[X]ctaverage characteristics such as education • where Fc denote some country-specific family policy, and t is a time trend • where robust standard errors are clustered by country

31. Table 6. Determinants of Women’s Employment Rates Across Countriesl

32. Empirical Results – Cross-Country: Women’s Employment Rates • Traditional gender role attitudes are negatively correlated with women’s employment rates. • more significantly so using lagged values • Anti-equalitarian views are also quite significantly negatively correlated with women’s employment rates • Effect of men’s attitudes are very significant, but less so than women’s attitudes • The effect of log expenditures on child care is cut by half when attitudes are included, supporting Algan and Cahuc (2004)’s claim that the effect of policy variables may be over-estimated when values given rise to them are not controlled for.

33. Empirical Results – Cross-Country: Fertility Rates • The cross-sectional relationship between total fertility rates and women’s employment rates was negative in the 1970s and up to the early 1980s, but became positive in the late 1980s (Ahn and Mira, 2002). • The emergence of high and persistent unemployment rates has been suggested as an explanation for the reversal in the relationship (Adsera, 2005). • In the presence of high unemployment and unstable contracts, women postpone childbearing to increase lifetime income through early skill acquisition and minimize unemployment risk.

34. Total Fertility Rates across Countries

35. Table 7. Determinants of Total Fertility Rates Across Countries

36. Empirical Results – Cross-Country: Fertility Rates • “Being a housewife fulfilling” has a significant positive impact on fertility • This effect is similar when • Women’s attitudes are included (identity story) • Men’s attitudes are included (social norms story) • Combined with the positive effect of women’s employment rates on fertility indicates that “balancing work and family” is a central concern in fertility decisions. • Anti-equalitarian views are not significant.

37. Summary • Traditional gender roles attitudes, either as indicators of salient identities or as social norms, continue to play a dominant role in women’s labor market and fertility decisions. • Equalitarian views have relatively little explanatory power, especially once educational attainment is controlled for.

38. Conclusion • While anti-equalitarian views may present obstacles for women in the labor market, equalitarian views do not appear to have strong push effects beyond that educational attainment • Traditional gender roles exert a persistent negative effect on women participation in the labor market and a positive effect on fertility • To the extent, that there is indeed an “opting-out” phenomena, it may come more from the persistent appeal of housewifery than from a sag in equalitarian views

39. AppendixTable A1. Questions on Important Values and Associated Variables

40. AppendixTable A2. Women’s Employment Rates and Total Fertility Rates by Country

41. AppendixTable A3. Average (over time) Gender Role Attitudes by Country