The transition to the first birth and labour market trajectories: the interrelation of micro and macro social factors

This article assesses the micro and macro social factors that explain changes in the transition to the first birth and the entry into labour market in a Latin-American country with a peculiar demographic evolution: Uruguay. First, we examine the timing of the first birth and the timing of entry into the first full-time job of several female cohorts. We take into account the endogeneity of the decision-making process in the reproductive and productive spheres by estimating the mutual effects of reproductive and labour-market transitions on one another. Secondly, we study the interactions between the socio-economic context and the individual biographical characteristics, in a context of increasing female activity rates and higher levels of societal risks in the region. We evaluate the responses in the productive and reproductive behaviour to the changes in market and economic conditions. We focus on the characteristics that are more critical in determining the levels of social risk, most importantly unemployment rates and economic growth, seeking to establish the presence of pro-cyclical or anti-cyclical effects in individual reproductive trajectories—mediated by the labour market trajectories as well as the cohort, social origins and educational attainment levels. We use longitudinal survey data (2001 and 2008).