Globalization and Gender‐Specific Patterns in Individual Fertility Decisions

Abstract

In the German post‐reunification context dominated by economic uncertainty and structural change, this paper studies the effects of import shocks from China on the fertility decisions of individuals working in the German manufacturing sector between 1995 and 2016. While focusing on trade shocks related to Chinese imported goods, the paper explores individual fertility via the labor market outcomes of manufacturing workers, roughly a fifth of German employment. I investigate the gender‐specific effects of Chinese import competition on individual fertility and explain the channels mediating each of them. I find that globalization affects overall fertility negatively, but the effect is positive for women and negative for men. Results indicate a reduction in the employment opportunity of individuals, an increase in marginal employment and higher economic insecurity. There is a substitution effect in the labor supply of women, here prevalently concentrated in low‐technology sectors: as female earnings fall and their opportunity cost of work is lower, the prospect of having children possibly becomes a more rewarding alternative. Given concerns over low fertility in Germany, findings are particularly important for understanding the German social and economic structure that enabled the country's post‐reunification transformation but also allowed heavy labor market segmentation and atypical work.

Trade Exposure in Germany: How China's Exports Affect Men's and Women's Fertility. An Application to G-SOEP

“…In addition, this is particularly true for Germany and Eastern Germany, where the importance of marriage has been decreasing over the last decade (Klärner, 2015). This paper contributes to the literature on trade exposure in reproducing Autor et al (2014) and Piriu (2020).…”

“…We consider two approaches in the literature: Autor et al (2014), andPiriu (2020). The latter takes into consideration current values for employment, in particular: i) the share of employment in manufacturing by industry, ii) the number of workers engaged by manufacturing industry, and iii) the share of manufacturing workers by state of employment.…”

“…Using the German Socio-Economic Panel (G-SOEP), we select two samples formed only by women, and try to assess the impact of trade exposure on women's fertility choices. The analysis follows two contributions in the literature (Autor, Horn, Hanson, & Song, 2014;Piriu, 2020): one is affected by bad controls issues. The latter is solved by considering employed and unemployed workers independently from the current industry sector.This first approach can be called panel analysis, while the second one follows Autor et al (2014) and it considers the change of imports' amounts over time instead of fixed stocks.…”

“…The current contribution relies on the German Socio-Economic Panel to evaluate how fertility choices measured with total number of birth events is influenced by trade exposure to China's exports. The analysis and the computation of the required indexes and instruments follow the procedure of Autor, Dorn, and Hanson (2012) and Autor et al (2014) together with Piriu (2020).…”

Industrial Robots and Regional Fertility in European Countries

“…Among them the majority concentrated on changes caused by globalisation, in particular the detrimental role of import competition with China for employment opportunities of middle-skilled workers, mostly male, in goods-producing industries. Studies consistently showed that increased import competition led to a decline in fertility, largely by a declining marriage value of men (Autor et al, 2019 ; Giuntella et al, 2022 ; Piriu, 2022 ). Researchers’ interest in how technology-driven labour market changes affect fertility has been even scarcer.…”