Anna Matysiak

University of Warsaw | UW · Faculty of Economic Sciences

Modern parenting is both emotionally costly and rewarding. It is also more intensive than before and requires significant time and effort, particularly from mothers. Emotional costs and benefits of children are important to fertility decisions, and they may be linked with a mother’s parenting behaviours. Using a sample of 4402 partnered first-time...

Globalisation and technological advancements have transformed European labour markets, making work schedules more demanding and difficult to manage. Increased expectations for availability beyond standard working hours, along with the need for constant skill updates, have exacerbated work-family conflict, particularly for dual-earner couples with c...

Recent changes in labour markets have increased employment instability. Under these conditions, in male breadwinner families women might increase their labour supply when their male partners become unemployed. Previous studies have extensively investigated the role played by household and individual characteristics in explaining such increases in t...

Research from the US argues that women will benefit from a structural labour market change as the importance of social tasks increases and that of manual tasks declines. This article contributes to this discussion in three ways: (a) by extending the standard framework of task content of occupations in order to account for the gender perspective; (b...

Labour markets in post-industrial countries have been undergoing tremendous transformations in the last two decades, substantially changing the conditions in which young adults take family decisions and raise children. Whilst these changes create new opportunities, they also generate risks which potentially foster uncertain futures and affect indiv...

Work from home (WFH) has been a part of the professional landscape for over two decades, yet it was the COVID-19 pandemic that has substantially increased its prevalence. The impact of WFH on careers is rather ambiguous, and a question remains open about how this effect is manifested in the current times considering the recent extensive and widespr...

We examine the timely yet greatly under-researched interplay between home-based work (HBW) and women’s birth transitions. Past research has shown that HBW may facilitate and/or jeopardize work–family balance, depending on the worker’s family and work circumstances. Following that research, we develop here a theoretical framework on how HBW can faci...

Earnings constitute one of the most important sources of income for most of the European families. In this context, growing instability of employment relations and the spread of nonstandard employment – which is usually less secure and less paid than standard employment – pose serious financial risks to families, especially the traditional and mode...

Recent changes in labour markets have increased employment instability. Under these conditions, in male breadwinner families women might increase their labour supply when their male partners become unemployed. Previous studies have extensively investigated the role played by household and individual characteristics in explaining such increases in t...

The Covid-19 pandemic and related massive spread of home based work led to substantial changes in the conditions for combining work and childbearing. On the one hand, working from home helped parents to accommodate increased childcare needs during the pandemic. On the other hand, it led to acute experiences of blurred boundaries between work and fa...

Studies on mothers’ time allocation and fertility have predominantly accentuated the importance of paid work for fertility decisions and, in consequence, of policies that allow combining paid work and family life. In this view, work time is typically seen as the time taken away from the family and vice versa. This paradigm does not recognize that m...

In this study, we examine whether the long-term structural changes in the labour market, driven by automation, affect fertility. The adoption of industrial robots is used as a proxy for these changes. It has tripled since the mid-1990s in the EU, tremendously changing the conditions of participating in the labour market. On the one hand, new jobs a...

Here we present the Familydemic Cross Country and Gender Dataset (FCCGD), which offers cross country and gender comparative data on work and family outcomes among parents of dependent children, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. It covers six countries from two continents representing diverse welfare regimes as well as distinct policy reactio...

In this study we examine whether the long-term structural changes in the labour market, driven by automation, affect fertility. Adoption of industrial robots in the EU has tripled since the mid-1990s, tremendously changing the conditions of participating in the labour market. On the one hand, new jobs are created, benefitting largely the highly ski...

Unlabelled: While existing research has documented complexities in biographies of childless women, few studies to date have systematically examined the life-course pathways of the childless from a comparative, cross-country perspective. In this paper, we analyse biographies of childless women in four countries-Germany, Italy, Poland, and the Unite...

This article provides evidence on the relationship between fathers’ labor market outcomes and number of children. Using data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions and instrumental variable models, this study examines how family size is related to fathers’ probability of employment, number of paid working hours, job rank...

Recent research suggests that the fertility-education relationship may be mediated by the educational attainment of the partner, especially among the tertiary-educated. However, there are no studies focusing on the couple-education-fertility nexus among couples who achieved only basic educational attainment, even though resource pooling theory pred...

The relationship between employment instability and fertility is a major topic in demographic research, with a proliferation of published papers on this matter, especially since the Great Recession. Employment instability, which most often manifests in unemployment or time-limited employment, is usually deemed to have a negative effect on fertility...

This study investigates how the changes in labour market conditions and economic growth were associated with fertility before and during the Great Recession in Europe in 2002–2014. In contrast to previous studies, which largely concentrated at the country level, we use data for 251 European regions in 28 European Union (EU) member states prior to t...

This article provides insights into employment decisions of mothers and mothers-to-be in a post-socialist Poland around the entry to the EU. Previous studies for this country continuously pointed to a strong determination among mothers to be employed during the economic transformation, despite increasing obstacles to combining paid work with childr...

While existing research has documented complexities in the life-courses of childless women, few studies to date have systematically examined the life-course pathways of the childless from a comparative, cross-country perspective. In this paper, we analyse biographies of childless women in four countries – Germany, Italy, Poland, and the United Stat...

Mothers tend to receive lower wages than comparable childless women. This ‘motherhood wage gap’ has been reported in numerous studies. We summarize the existing empirical evidence on this topic using meta-analysis and test for several mechanisms which can be responsible for the persistence of the wage gap. Based on 208 wage effects of having exactl...

As self-employment offers greater flexibility compared to wage and salary contracts, women might choose it to achieve a better work-family balance. Empirical research on this topic yielded equivocal results. We add to this discussion and provide evidence for Poland. Public support for working parents in Poland is relatively poor and women need to d...

Mothers tend to receive lower wages than comparable childless women. This ‘motherhood wage gap’ has been reported in numerous studies. We summarize the existing empirical evidence on this topic using meta-analysis and test for several mechanisms which can be responsible for the persistence of the wage gap. Based on 208 wage effects of having exactl...

This report aims to summarize the available evidence on the effects of family policies on fertility. We combine literature review with empirical illustrations for selected countries and policy interventions. In addition, we also discuss the complexity of the policy-fertility links. The key questions addressed in our review are the following: - Wha...

We provide new evidence on the education-fertility relationship by using EU-SILC panel data on 24 European countries to investigate how couples’ educational pairings predict their childbearing behavior. We focus on differences in first-, second-, and third-birth rates among couples with varying combinations of partners’ education. Our results show...

We explore whether social mobility influences fertility behavior, using multiple comparative layers to better observe structural and individual-level mechanisms at work. We locate this study in Poland and Russia during periods of socialism and capitalism. Applying event-history analysis techniques to longitudinal micro-data, we find evidence of a r...

BACKGROUND Daniele Vignoli1 Anna Matysiak2,3 Marta Styrc3 Valentina Tocchioni4 Empirical findings regarding the impact of women’s employment on divorce are mixed. One explanation is that the effects are moderated by the country context. Another is that previous studies have failed to account for unobserved factors that introduce bias into the estim...

BACKGROUND Empirical findings regarding the impact of women's employment on divorce are mixed. One explanation is that the effects are moderated by the country context. Another is that previous studies have failed to account for unobserved factors that introduce bias into the estimated effects. Studies also rarely consider possible anticipatory emp...

Family formation is a well-studied topic in demography and the social sciences. Yet, open questions to be addressed by future research remain. Focusing on the childbearing side of family formation, we discuss how a gendered lens, which led researchers to concentrate on women's experiences, has shaped previous studies. We argue that future research...

The country-specific conditions for work and family reconciliation (family policies, labour market structures and gender norms) are believed to influence tensions between paid employment and childbearing. So far there have been very few attempts to quantify these conditions into a single measure which would allow for comparisons across countries of...

This paper contributes to the discussion on the effects of the number of children on female employment in Europe. Most previous research has either (1) compared these effects across countries, assuming an exogeneity of family size; or (2) used methods that dealt with endogeneity of family size, but that focused on single countries. We combine these...

Many empirical studies find that parents are not as happy as non-parents or that parenthood exerts a negative effect on subjective well-being (SWB). We add to these findings by arguing that there is a key moderating factor that has been overlooked in previous research, i.e. the level of work–family conflict. We hypothesize that the birth of a child...

The Cohort Fertility and Education (CFE) database provides high-quality data on completed cohort fertility and parity distribution by level of education. The data come from censuses and large sample surveys, and cover several (mostly European) countries, i.e. countries with generally high levels of education and relatively low fertility. As the dat...

As a result of low fertility and ageing populations, reconciling work and family has become a prominent topic in demographic research. Numerous macro-level studies on this topic have found that the cross-country correlation between total fertility and women’s labour force participation has changed from negative to positive in Western European econo...

http://www.fertilitydatasheet.org Tomáš Sobotka, Kryštof Zeman, Michaela Potančoková, Jakob Eder, Zuzanna Brzozowska, Éva Beaujouan, Anna Matysiak

Remaining childless is a process which is influenced by the continuously changing context in which an individual woman lives, and by the many choices she makes in various life spheres over her life course. Most previous studies on this issue have compared mothers and childless women at the end of their reproductive years, and have sought to identif...

BACKGROUND Previous studies have shown that in Poland, cohabitation is most of all a transitory step or a testing period before marriage. This living arrangement is not recognized under the Polish law and it has been portrayed as uncommitted and short-lived. However, few studies have investigated what cohabitation means for relationships, especiall...

This paper contributes to the discussion on the effects of childbearing on men's and women's employment in the developed countries. While the literature on motherhood penalty due to childbearing is voluminous, there have been no empirical studies that systematically compare the size of the effect of fatherhood on employment cross-nationally net of...

Childlessness is rarely an outcome of a single decision or can be attributed to one particular reason. Remaining childless should rather be seen as a process, influenced by continuously changing context and by many choices that an individual makes in various life spheres over the life course. A necessity to look at a childlessness in a dynamic way...

In this article, we discuss how paid and unpaid parental leave entitlements shape women’s employment (re-)entry after the birth of their first child and the progression to a second child. We compare Hungary and Poland, two low-fertility countries which share many similarities in their institutional, cultural and economic frameworks but which differ...

This paper contributes to the discussion on the effects of the number of children on female employment in Europe. Previous research has usually either (1) compared these effects across countries assuming exogeneity of family size or (2) used methods which deal with endogeneity of family size but focused on single countries. We combine the se two ap...

This paper contributes to the discussion on the effects of childbearing on fathers’ labour market opportunities in Europe. We use instrumental variable models and data from EU-SILC to examine the cross-country variation in the causal effects of family size on the labour market outcomes of fathers. We provide an overview of the impact of family size...

In this article, we discuss how paid and unpaid parental leave entitlements shape women's employment (re-) entry after the birth of their first child and the progression to a second child. We compare Hungary and Poland, two low-fertility countries which share many similarities in their institutional, cultural and economic frameworks but which diffe...

Effects of Parental Leave Policies on Second Birth Risks and Women’s Employment Entry In this article, we discuss how paid and unpaid parental leave entitlements shape women’s employment (re-)entry after the birth of their first child and the progression to a second child. We compare Hungary and Poland, two low-fertility countries which share many...

This paper contributes to the discussion on the effects of single motherhood on happiness. We use a mixed-method approach. First, based on in-depth interviews with mothers who gave birth while single, we explore mechanisms through which children may influence mothers’ happiness. In a second step, we analyze panel survey data to quantify this influe...

A large number of empirical studies have investigated the effects of women's education on union dissolution in Europe, but results have varied substantially. This paper seeks to assess the relationship between educational attainment and the incidence of marital disruption by systematizing the existing empirical evidence. A quantitative literature r...

In this paper, we look into how country-specific factors shape the interrelationship between childbearing and women's labor supply. To this end, we compare Italy and Poland, two low-fertility countries where the country-specific obstacles to work and family reconciliation are similarly strong but which differ in the history of women's labor supply...

The paper investigates whether self-employment, which generally offers greater flexibility with respect to the hours and place of work, is chosen by women in order to achieve a better balance between paid work and family. The empirical research on this topic has provided conflicting evidence. The shortcomings of previous studies are discussed and a...

In this research we study remaining childless as a process – i.e., as a result of a series of decisions in different life spheres, taken over the life course. We explore paths into childlessness through sequence analysis techniques and focus on Italy and Poland, two countries two countries that display relatively high levels of childlessness des...

The country-specific conditions for work and family reconciliation have been theoretically and empirically acknowledged to constitute important determinants of fertility and women’s employment. So far, however, there have been very few attempts to quantify these conditions into a single measure which would allow for comparisons across countries of...

After mid-20th century the scientific study of population changed its paradigm from macro to micro so that the main focus of attention has been devoted to individuals as the agents of demographic action. However, to handle all the complexities of human behaviours, the interactions between individuals and the context they belong to cannot be ignored...

Niniejszy artyku³ prezentuje ideê badañ ewaluacyjnych oraz dokonuje przegl¹du badañ mierz¹cych wp³yw przyczynowo-skutkowy reform polityki rodzinnej na dzietnoœæ. W œwietle doœwiadczeñ miêdzynarodowych pozytywny wp³yw na dzietnoœæ mog¹ mieæ: poprawa dostêpnoœci us³ug opiekuñczych dla dzieci, system premiowania szybkiego przejœcia do drugiego dziecka...

In this paper, we model interdependencies between fertility and women's employment in post- socialist Poland, a country that experienced a rapid decline in fertility and employment after 1989. In view of the fact that finding and maintaining employment became difficult, a hypothesis has been formulated that women postpone childbearing until they fi...

A discussion of the effects of partners’ labour force participation on marital stability has been part of the demographic debate for several decades. While theorists generally agree that men’s employment has a stabilizing effect on marriage, there is considerable controversy about the effects of women’s involvement in the labour market on marital s...

Interdependencies between fertility and women’s employment in post-socialist countries are largely unexplored. In fact, in our meta-study presented in Chapter 5 we located only two empirical studies that employed longitudinal perspective to investigate the micro-level relationship between the two variables. These two studies provide evidence contra...

It is widely acknowledged that European countries differ strongly in the conditions offered to working parents to combine paid employment and childcare. Our analysis conducted in Chapter 4 demonstrates that in the second half of the 2000s these conditions were undoubtedly best in Scandinavian countries, followed by the Netherlands, Finland, Belgium...

The context is a multi-dimensional and multi-level ‘structure of institutions that embody information about opportunities and restrictions, consequences and expectations, rights and duties, incentives and sanctions, models, guidelines, and definitions of the world’ (de Bruijn, 1999: 21). This information is continuously transmitted to individuals a...

The decline in fertility experienced by the industrialised economies over recent decades was for a long time attributed to the rising labour force participation of women. For instance, the authors of the concept of the second demographic transition ascribe the fall in the propensity to have children to the rising economic autonomy of women and the...

In Chapter 2 we demonstrated the complexity of the interdependencies between fertility and women’s labour supply at the macro-level. The data presented suggest that the interrelationship may depend on the incompatibilities between fertility and women’s work which varies across countries, but also on some other country-specific factors. If the mecha...

A large number of empirical studies have investigated the role of education in the changes in union dissolution in Europe, but these studies have so far produced inconsistent results. This paper seeks to assess the relationship between educational attainment and the incidence of marital dissolution by systematizing the existing empirical evidence o...

Our motivation to conduct this study was driven by inevitable and profound changes in the age structure of the population of Europe. These changes are reflected in a decline in the working age population along with an increase in the population of post-productive age and pose a serious threat to the sustainability of social security systems, econom...

In the last decades of the twentieth century, Period Total Fertility Rates (TFRs) decreased in almost all industrialised countries, reaching values well below the replacement level. Particularly severe declines were observed in countries of Southern Europe and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), i.e., that part of Europe1 where the transition to low...

Acknowledgements.- Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: Developments in Fertility and Women's Labour Supply in Europe.- Chapter 3: Fertility and Women's Labour Supply: Theoretical Considerations.- Chapter 4: Macro-Context and its Cross-Country Variation.- Chapter 5: Macro-Context and the Cross-Country Variation in the Micro-Level Relationship betwe...

This paper analyses women’s employment behaviour around first birth in Italy and Poland. These two countries have much in common as far as their cultural and institutional frameworks are concerned. However, they also display key differences that allow us to better investigate how the country-specific factors mediate women’s employment behaviour aro...

We offer a comparison between the age profiles of risks of formation of marital and non-marital unions in Russia, Romania, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Italy. We show that there is considerable variability across these populations in the level and age pattern of union-entry risks, ranging (i) from the high and early risks in Russia to the slow an...

This paper attempts to establish the stage Poland has reached in the process of cohabitation diffusion, referring to the theoretical model of the process developed in demographic literature. Official statistics suggest that Poland is still in the first stage of cohabitation diffusion; however, our in-depth study of the process of first union format...

Demografowie coraz czêœciej wskazuj¹ na rolê regulacji prawnych dla kszta³towania decyzji jednostek w obszarze formowania, rozwoju i rozpadu rodzin. Regulacje te okreœlaj¹ koszty i korzyœci podejmowania okreœlonych dzia³añ. Na przyk³ad, przepisy reguluj¹ce prawa i obowi¹zki ma³¿onków i partnerów w zwi¹zku konsensualnym determinuj¹ koszty i korzyœci...

Poland experienced a rapid fertility decline after the end of the socialist regime in 1989. At the same time, it became much more difficult, especially for women, to act on their determination to find and keep paid employment. To investigate whether women postponed childbearing until they found a job, we undertook a simultaneous estimation of trans...