THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FEMALE LABOUR FORCE PARTICIPATION AND FERTILITY IN G7 COUNTRIES: EVIDENCE FROM PANEL COINTEGRATION AND GRANGER CAUSALITY

This paper examines the relationship between the female labour force participation rate and total fertility rate for the G7 countries over the period 1960 to 2004 using panel unit root, panel cointegration, Granger causality and long-run structural estimation. The paper's main findings are that the female labour force participation rate and total fertility rate are cointegrated for the panel of G7 countries; that long-run Granger causality runs from the total fertility rate to the female labour force participation rate and that a 1-per cent increase in the total fertility rate results in a 0.4 per cent decrease in the female labour force participation rate for the G7 countries.