Women’s Career Strategy Choices and Fertility in Finland

Abstract

To better understand the correlation between fertility, female employment, and family policy, this paper employs Finnish register data on women born in 1969 to study the association between women’s labour market careers and fertility. The investigation is based on a theoretical argument which holds that women make different kinds of strategic choices about their careers as influenced by their own preferences, family policies, and household resources. Women are divided into three different groups based on their activity in the labour market from the month they reach age 18 until the month before they turn 35. The level and timing of fertility, the central characteristics of the women belonging to the different groups, and the entry into motherhood are examined with descriptive statistics and event history techniques. Results show that Finnish women’s choices concerning employment and fertility are relatively heterogeneous: At one end of the scale a considerable number of women stay outside the labour market for longer periods of time, enter motherhood at a relatively early age, and have large families, whereas at the other end we find women with long periods of continuous education and employment, high age of entry into motherhood, and small family sizes.