The Relationship between Wives’ Share of Income and Subsequent Fertility: Evidence from Taiwan

This study aims to examine the relationship between wives’ share of income and subsequent fertility across birth parity in Taiwan. Previous studies suggest that wives’ share of income have a negative effect on the likelihood of having a child in Western societies, in terms of the costs associated with childbearing and childcare for women in the labor force. However, in Taiwan, the pervasive ideologies of the familistic welfare model and gendered division of labor signify the meaning of “doing gender” among wives who outearn their husbands, potentially leading to a non-linear relationship between wives’ share of income and subsequent fertility. Further, we investigate whether this relationship varies across birth parity, given the powerful link between formal marriage and childbearing, as well as the improved women’s economic role within households in Taiwan. Using data from the Panel Study of Family Dynamics (PSFD) and random-intercept logistic models, our results show a U-shaped relationship between wives’ share of income and subsequent fertility for couples with one child. In contrast, for childless couples or couples with two or more children, there is no significant association between wives’ share of income and subsequent fertility. These findings shed light on the multifaceted effects of wives’ relative economic status, bargaining power and display of gender roles in the decision to have a second child in East Asian societies with the “lowest-low” fertility.