Female relative income and continued childbearing in Sweden (1968 to 2009)

Ernesto Silva, Lund University

This paper continues a previous one on the relationship between household income and continued childbearing in Sweden from 1968 to 2009. In that paper we found some evidence suggesting that female income share may not be negatively related with continued childbearing as suggested by some New Home Economics models. Indeed, we have found that the risk of continued childbearing is usually slightly higher when the woman earns more than her partner. Our purpose is to go deeper in the analysis and check how the association varies over time, across social strata, and between married and cohabiting couples. We also want to consider different theoretical approaches in order to get plausible explanations about the empirical association between female income share, continued childbearing and measures of fathers’ involvement in childcare activities that may be affecting the way couples are dealing with the opportunity costs of children. The study will be conducted with registered based longitudinal data covering all Swedish couples living in Sweden at some point between after 1968. Income figures are given annually and we also have the proportion of that income that comes from parental leave benefits.