Family Labour Participation and Reproductive Behaviour

AbstractPublic policies have an important role in stimulating the birth. Due to society modernisation, Europeans are increasingly less interested in having children. Therefore, decisions on fertility must allow cross-fertility with labour market participation and not addressing them separately (Francesconi, 2002; Del Boca, 2002; Apps and Rees, 2004; Laroque and Salanie, 2005). Researches on women labour participation, mostly empirical studies, emphasize the negative effect of fertility rates in diminishing the labour supply. Thus, a study with married couples from Bucharest County, Romania was conducted. The main objective was to assess the reproductive behaviour for the married couples. The methodology consists on a Computer Assisted Telephonic Interviews questionnaire, developed by authors. The sample size was of 201 respondents aged 25-39 years. Data was processed on unweight database, using SPSS 19.0. The case-study results show that in the decision to have a child, wage and the overall income are the most important determinants