Women’s Wage and Childbearing
This research studies how women’s hourly wages affect childbearing using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The results of discrete time hazard model show that the relationship between women’s hourly wage and fertility is dynamic. Overall relationship looks negative, but they are not consistent across education levels. Women who have a high school diploma or less have a tendency to decrease childbearing when their wages increase. But women who have some college experience or a college degree are likely to have children when their wages increase. It means that only for highly educated women who are likely to be in high paying decent jobs, the rise of income can be used as a resource for reconciling the mother’s and worker’s roles. Or, for less educated women who are likely to be in the low paying jobs, the rise of income is not large enough to lessen role incompatibility.