Paper #1916

Title:

Are men’s attitudes holding back fertility and women’s careers? Evidence from Europe

Authors:

Giulia Briselli and Libertad González Luna

Date:

September 2025

Abstract:

We propose that men’s reluctance to increase their participation in childcare and household chores is an important factor keeping both fertility and women’s employment low in Europe. We first show that, over time, European women express a stronger desire for men increasing their participation in home production. This trend is not observed for men. We propose a toy model of the household that illustrates how men’s refusal to contribute to childcare can have negative effects on both fertility and women’s labor supply. Finally, we use cross-country panel data and a two-way fixed effects specification to show that countries where the gender divergence in attitudes is more pronounced display both lower birth-rates and lower female employment rates.

Keywords:

fertility , gender norms , female labor force participation

JEL codes:

J13, J16, J21

Area of Research:

Labour, Public, Development and Health Economics

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