TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Halla, Martin
AU  - Mayr, Harald
AU  - Pruckner, Gerald J.
AU  - Garcia-Gomez, Pilar
        TI  - Cutting Fertility? The Effect of Cesarean Deliveries on Subsequent Fertility and Maternal Labor Supply
        PY  - 2016/Apr/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 9905
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp9905
        AB  - The incidence of Cesarean deliveries (CDs) has been on the rise. The procedure's cost and benefits are discussed controversially; in particular, since non-medically indicated cases seem widespread. We study the effect of CDs on subsequent fertility and maternal labor supply. Identification is achieved by exploiting variation in the supply-side's incentives to induce non-medically indicated CDs across weekdays. On weekends and public holidays obstetricians' are less likely to induce CDs (due tighter capacity constraints in hospital). On Fridays and other days preceding a holiday, they face an increased incentive to induce CDs (due to their demand for leisure on non-working days).
We use high-quality administrative data from Austria. Women giving birth on different weekdays are pre-treatment observationally identical. Our instrumental variable estimates show that a non-planned CD at parity one decreases life cycle fertility by almost 17 percent. This reduction in fertility translates into a temporary increase in maternal employment.
        KW  - female labor supply
KW  - Caesarean delivery
KW  - Caesarean section
KW  - fertility
        ER  -