Female Employment and Fertility in Lima, Peru

Abstract

A recent random survey of currently mated women in Lima Peru shows no clearcut relation between fertility and employment status. When the number of live births was related to years mated the fertility of working and nonworking women in the upper class was almost identical; middle-class working women have 10% lower fertility rates than their nonworking peers and lower-class working women have 20% less. In each social class women with 0-2 children were more likely to be working than women with more children but the proportions do not diminish after 3 children. When attitudes of working and nonworking women toward family size were compared no consistent differences emerged. This was especially true when the same survey was repeated in the growing industrial city of Chimbote leading to the conclusion that employment status is more often a consequence of marital fertility than a cause. It also seems likely that legal marriage reduces female employment and increases fertility by stabilizing sexual relationships.