Institutional Interdependency: Explaining the Relationship between Female Labour Force Participation and Fertility Rates in Post-Industrial Nations

Abstract

The central research question of the thesis is: “Why was the relationship between female labour force participation and fertility rates positive in post-industrial nations in the period 1990–2009?” Scholarship has sought to explain the emergence of a positive relationship between female labour force participation and fertility rates through gender equity-based explanations. However, this literature has primarily focused on gender equity in family-oriented institutions. It has paid less attention to other dimensions of female constraint and opportunity that exist across multiple spheres of women’s lives, including explanations centred on industrial relations institutions, welfare state institutions and social policies, and the household as a social institution. Existing institutional explanations have been siloed from each other, rather than being incorporated into a model that encompasses their interdependency, as this thesis argues. Using a ‘most different systems’ comparative approach, a qualitative case study analysis of four countries with distinct institutional arrangements – the U.S., Australia, Denmark and Germany – was conducted. Qualitative data including policy documents and legislative provisions were analysed for the four nations to generate hypotheses. These hypotheses serve the purpose of developing more general theoretical propositions, which were then tested using a larger-N sample of 17 nations through pooled time-series analysis using Prais–Winsten regression estimation to empirically test the impact of identified institutions on female labour force participation and fertility rates. This thesis conceptualises a new theoretically and empirically informed comprehensive ‘institutional interdependency model’ based on women’s limitations and opportunity structures in reconciling paid employment and motherhood which are contingent on three main spheres: 1) industrial relations institutions (including skilling systems and wage determination regimes), 2) welfare state institutions (including employment protection legislation, family policy, active labour market programmes and public sector employment), and 3) the household as a social institution to answer the central research question.