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  • Title: The contribution of the World Fertility Surveys to an understanding of the relationship between women's work and fertility.
    Author: Lloyd CB.
    Journal: Stud Fam Plann; 1991; 22(3):144-61. PubMed ID: 1949098.
    Abstract:
    A consistent negative association between women's paid work and fertility in developed countries has emerged from many years of research. Results from research in developing countries are more ambiguous, with as many examples of a positive association as of a negative one. Lack of data comparability has often hampered interpretation of results. The World Fertility Surveys (WFS)--undertaken in 40 developing countries between 1974-81, using a common core questionnaire that included numerous questions on women's work--have created a unique opportunity to evaluate this association in a comparative framework. This article reviews and interprets the major findings on the work-fertility relationship from this and other published research on women's work and fertility, and assesses the data limitations. The article concludes with recommendations for the treatment of women's work in the design of future fertility and family planning surveys. The World Fertility Surveys (WFS) have contributed little information about the association between women's work and fertility, yet this limited information is not insignificant. 1st, the WFS confirmed that the association between women's work and fertility differs greatly between and within developing countries. Before the WFS, no 2 studies gauged women's productivity in the same way or used identical statistical techniques. The surveys also revealed that some aspects of social conditions, e.g, level of socioeconomic development, only explain part of the difference in the relationship between developing countries. Further the WFS showed that the short term relationship between entry in the work force and exit and birth timing is different from the long term relationship between completed fertility and employment history. Earlier studies did not differentiate between the short run and long run thereby making interpretation of results confusing. The last substantial information uncovered by the WFS included that, in almost all countries studied, women's work status accounted for statistical differences in number of children ever born. Nevertheless the WFS did not reveal the causal determinants that underlie work fertility relationships. Results of such a survey can generate hypotheses, however, about relationships whereby researchers can analyze the data further. They then would need to design another study to collect and analyze more indepth, qualitative, or longitudinal data to test the hypotheses. Any future surveys that look at the relationship between women's work and fertility should include consistent definitions of work, hourly earnings or wage rates for all those working for cash, at least a household survey with information on household composition, and data on other factors of the division of labor within the household, e.g., child care arrangements.
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