Fertility Transition in Turkey—Who is Most at Risk of Deciding against Child Arrival?

Abstract

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

Two or Three Children? Turkish Fertility at a Crossroads

“…Our regression analysis seeks to identify the characteristics of families that are most likely to decide for or against having a third child. (Results for first and second births are presented in Tables A and B in the Appendix and discussed in detail in Greulich, Dasre, and Inan .) We focus our analysis on women's and their partner's activity status, but also control for other socioeconomic and demographic characteristics.…”

“…When converting estimation parameters of Model 1 into probabilities, we find that, on average, 18 percent of women aged 25–34 having a second child aged 1 or 2 are employed. A comparison with women who are at risk of having a first and second child (see Greulich, Dasre, and Inan for the estimation results) reveals that the proportion of women in stable full‐time employment decreases with birth order: 48 percent of childless women aged 25–34 are in stable employment, compared to 25 percent of women with one child and 18 percent with two. These results are further indication that childbirth causes a cessation or a reduction in women's working activities and reinforce our assumption that women in Turkey have to choose between larger family size and employment.…”