Panel SVAR model of women's employment, fertility, and economic growth: A comparative study of East Asian and EU countries

This paper examines the relationship among women's employment, fertility, and economic growth using two regional panel data, those of 8 East Asian and 15 EU countries over the period 1980-2008. We use a panel structural vector autoregression model and estimate the variance decomposition. The endogeneity among women's employment, fertility, and growth is considerably reduced when we use the samples of East Asian and the EU countries rather than a specific country. In addition, we find that changes in women's employment and fertility rates affect the determination of growth rates in EU countries to the extent of about 15%, which is higher than the impact in East Asian countries-about 10%. (C) 2012 Western Social Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.