Childbearing and well-being: a comparative analysis of European welfare regimes
Childbearing and well-being: a comparative analysis of European welfare regimes
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DOI：
10.1177/0958928705057262
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发表时间：
2005-11-01
影响因子：
3
通讯作者：
Mencarini, L
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Aassve, A;Mazzuco, S;Mencarini, L
当代欧洲的生育率已达到极低的水平。有鉴于此，我们对生育事件可能在多大程度上恶化个人的物质福祉感兴趣。我们使用从欧洲共同体家庭小组调查中抽取的女性样本，使用福利制度分类来比较生育对福祉的影响。认识到贫困状况不能很好地反映福祉，我们还得出了几种本质上是多维的福祉衡量标准。这些措施被称为剥夺指数，避免贫困/非贫困二分法。我们提供贫困状况和剥夺指数的描述性统计数据，以及更具因果性质的分析，后者由双重差分估计器与倾向得分匹配技术（DD-PSM）相结合组成。我们发现，无论如何定义幸福，生育事件永远不会对个人的物质幸福产生积极影响。但我们的估计与福利制度理论基本一致：社会民主福利国家的妇女因生育而遭受的痛苦最少，而保守派和地中海国家的妇女遭受的痛苦则要大得多。对于自由福利制度来说，结果更加复杂，并且取决于福利的定义。
Fertility rates in contemporary Europe have reached dramatically low levels. In light of this we are interested in the extent to which childbearing events may worsen individuals' material well-being. Using a sample of women drawn from the European Community Household Panel Survey, we make a comparison of the impact of childbearing on wellbeing using a welfare-regime classification. Recognizing that poverty status is a poor proxy for well-being, we also derive several measures of well-being that are multidimensional in nature. These measures are referred to as deprivation indices and avoid the poor/non-poor dichotomy. We provide descriptive statistics of poverty status and deprivations indices, as well as an analysis of a more causal nature, the latter consisting of a Difference-in-Differences estimator combined with Propensity Score Matching techniques (DD-PSM). We find that independently of how well-being is defined, childbearing events never have a positive impact on individuals' material well-being. But our estimates are largely consistent with welfare-regime theory: women in the social-democratic welfare states suffer the least as a result of childbearing, whereas women in conservative and Mediterranean states suffer significantly more. For the liberal welfare regime the results are more mixed, and depend on the definition of well-being.