Publication

Technological change and globalisation have been transforming the structure of labour
demand in favour of workers performing cognitive tasks. Even though past research has found
that labour force participation is an important determinant of fertility behaviour, few studies have
addressed the fertility effects of the long-term structural changes of labour market. To fill this gap,
we measure the cognitive task content of work at the occupation level using data from the
Employment Survey of the German Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training
(BiBB). We link this contextual information with employment and fertility histories of women
and men from the German Socio-Economic Panel 1984-2018 (GSOEP). With event history
models, we find that fertility transitions of men working in occupations characterised by high
cognitive task intensity are accelerated. We also observe elevated birth risks among women in
occupations requiring cognitive labour. However, this pattern is more ambiguous, as we find that
non-working women also experience elevated birth rates.