Time costs, aspirations and the effect of economic growth on German fertility.

Abstract

Recent research has shown strong support for the model of reproductive behavior derived from the new home economics, and it is shown in this discussion that the evidence from the Federal Republic of Germany is consistent with the new home economics model. There is little support for Easterlin's relative economic hypothesis, but there is limited endorsement for model which adds the influence of experience based material aspirations to the new home economics model. Easterlin's relative income model is reviewed before directing attention to the new home economics model and an explanation of fertility movements in West Germany. The new home economics model focuses on the family division of labor between home activities and work outside the home. The marked decline in German fertility during the 1970s is mostly attributable to factors such as expanding women's earning capacities which increased the importance of 2 earner families, who have a different family division of labor and possibly preferences biased towards "quality" of children rather than numbers. Also, real wage growth lagged behind the growth in experience based aspirations, and this drop in relative income is more dramatic if it is presumed that material aspirations are based upon the family's income experienced by a young adult during his/her adolescence, rather than just the father's earnings. The mother's contribution to family income will contribute to her family's actual standard of living and the desired standard of living of her children. The labor force participation rates of married, middle-aged German women increased markedly during the 1st half of the 1950s, thus tending to enhance the increase in the standard of living desired by the young adults reaching marrying and childbearing ages in the mid-1960s. The analysis indicates that if there is not a substantial reduction in the proportion of young married women in the labor force, fertility will move countercyclically. In that there must be some floor to fertility, one should be cautious of using these parameter estimates considerably outside the 1950-1977 period. Nonetheless, the estimates indicate that economic growth will not bring a substantial rise in German fertility, and, outside the unlikely situation of sustained economic decline, fertility will remain low.