Underpopulation, an impending economic crisis. Is home office correlated to realized fertility? A case study of Australia’s demographic

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the correlation between working from home and realized fertility and whether there are any differences between women and men. Existing literature highlights the fact that home office is an effective tool for parents to balance their work and family life, especially for working mothers, as they are more negatively affected by having a child compared to men. Using HILDA, an Australian household-panel study, data sets for the years 2019, 2015 and 2011 were constructed, and a probit model was used to run a regression. The results show that for an Australian woman, aged 18-45, home office is statistically significantly correlated to realized fertility for the 2019 data set and is robust over the 2015 and 2011 data sets, and the probability of having had a child increases when worked from home. However, for a man, only the 2019 data set shows a statistically significant correlation and a decrease in having had a child when worked from home. These results were found while controlling for internet access, education level, marital status, employment, household income and age. Although this study can only claim correlation and not causality, it hopes to provide evidence to the fact that home office is possibly an effective mechanism to elevate the low fertility rates observed in many countries today, at least for women.