Labor force participation, family policy change and second birth rates in South Korea

Over the past decades South Korea’s female labor force participation rates have increased, while its fertility decline has been dramatic. The family planning program implemented in 1962 is frequently argued to have initiated this fertility plunge. This study explores how women’s labor force participation is associated with second birth rates in South Korea; and how the family planning program among other factors may have contributed to this relationship. Event history analysis has been applied to longitudinal data. Results show that one-child mothers in the labor force has significantly lower second birth rates than homemakers, suggesting that labor force participation after first birth signals an interruption of a woman’s reproductive career. The second birth trend during the 1980s and 1990s partly developed in response to changes in the family planning program. The program abolishment in 1988 seems to have temporarily exhilarated second birth rates of homemakers, in particular.