Swedish Family Policy, Fertility and Female Wages

Recent demographic literature shows in Swedish micro-level data a positive effect of female wage income or female education on fertility. The literature explains this finding with Swedish family policies of high subsidies for bought-in child care and generous parental leave benefits that are calculated on the basis of a woman's prior wage income. Both policies would cause the substitution effect from an increase in female wages on fertility to be dominated by its income effect. This paper shows within an economic model that there are offsetting effects from Swedish family policy that cause the reduction in the magnitude of the substitution effect of female wages to be most likely rather small.