Female Labour Force Participation, Family Planning Policies, and Fertility: Causal Evidence from Mexico
利用墨西哥1990年代出口制造业扩张中女性就业增长的准自然实验，发现女性劳动参与率上升通过增加正式就业和公共医疗覆盖、提升避孕药具使用，从而降低了生育率。
I provide new evidence on a central question in the economics of fertility literature: What causes the negative correlation between women’s labour force participation (LFP) and fertility? Using an instrumental variable differences-in-differences (IV-DID) design, I estimate the causal impact of an expansion of women’s employment in Mexico’s export manufacturing sector during the 1990s on the fertility of the exposed cohorts of women. I find that the increases in women’s LFP reduced fertility. The expansion in women’s LFP reflects a sharp increase in formal employment and, in turn, access to public healthcare, which boosted the use of contraceptives offered through Mexico’s national family planning program.