The compositional effects of education and employment on Greek male and female fertility rates during 2000‒2014

Abstract

Background: As many of the advanced countries that were hit hard by the recent economic recession also have persistently low rates, researchers are increasingly interested in examining how the education‒employment gradient shapes outcomes. Objective: Our aim in this paper is to enrich the discussion about variation in crisis-driven patterns by focusing on male fertility, and by comparing the behavioral patterns and the factors of male and female under 'Great Recession' conditions. Methods: We estimate the education- and employment-specific rates of men and women for the 2000‒2014 period in Greece. Using a mixed standardization and decomposition method, we estimate the influence of changes in educational levels and employment status on total male and female fertility, which we call the compositional effect; and of changes in behavior, which we call the fertility Results: During the recent economic recession, the decline in has been far from uniform across genders, educational levels, and employment statuses. Moreover, it appears that the changes in male and female rates have been driven by different underlying forces. We find that among men, negative shifts in employability were exclusively responsible for the decline in rates; whereas among women, changes in the TFR were steadily conditioned by the pure effect. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that the effect on the period total rate might be more important than behavior per se, especially during time periods when economic variables clearly contribute to outcomes. Contribution: The topics tackled in the paper are potentially interesting and under-researched in particular in the context of the recent economic recession.