Impact of Women’s Labor Force Participation on Fertility

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of women’s labor force participation on fertility. The data for this analysis come from 2013(8th) Korea Welfare Panel Study by Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs. The main results were as follows; Firstly, the labor force participation had a negative impact on giving the first birth with statistical significance. In particular, regular clerks and non-regular service and sales workers appeared to be less likely to give their first birth. Secondly, the women in labor force appeared to be more likely to postpone or give up the their second birth. Such a negative impact appeared to be rather significantly for the regular clerks. It may be due to the tendency that their opportunity cost for giving their second birth is higher than those in other patterns of labor force participation.