How Changes in Cash Transfers Can Affect Childbearing Among Low-Income Women: Evidence from the Finnish Basic Income Experiment.

ABSTRACT: The study analyses how a two-year guaranteed income program that provided a significant earnings supplement affected childbearing among previously unemployed women. Results from previous research indicate that cash transfers may increase fertility, for example, by compensating for the additional costs of childbearing and lost earnings opportunities. However, cash transfers may also induce incentives that lead to opposite fertility effects. The study provides new empirical evidence on the effect of cash transfers on childbearing by using register data from the Finnish basic income experiment conducted in 2017-2018. The intervention increased returns from employment relative to unemployment. As a result, it increased cash incentives to employment and other activities, such as studying, that

SUBMITTER: Simanainen M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11947399 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature