Household structure and its effect over the labor participation of women and her decisions on fecundity in Colombia

This work empirically determined the effect of the household structure around the participation of women in the labor market and in the decisions of fecundity in Colombia by considering the structure of the household as a cost proxy of the children raise and as an exploration of the care model of our society. It is studied the effect between mothers with children at pre-school age in urban and rural areas in Colombia, using data from the National demography and Health Survey, 2010. The empirical analysis is based on the estimation of a biprobit model on the participation of women in the labor market and on the fecundity decisions. As a result, it is expected that: 1) when women have at their disposition someone to care for their pre-school children care, they have a higher probability of participating in the labor market; 2) when women have at their disposition a public institution of child care, their probability of participating in the labor market increases substantially; 3) when women have at their disposition someone to care for their pre-school children, they have a lower probability of having more than one little child.