the typical story is that higher female labourforce participation is associated with lower fertility but this result partly depends on the extent of public supports for the reproductive work of women involved in paid work for instance the high fertility and low female employment in ireland or the high fertility and high female employment in scandinavian countries can be linked to differences in the structures of their social welfare systems espinganderson the simple reason is that the time and financial burdens of social reproduction are spread among more contributors so increasing female labour force participation can be counterbalanced by supports in the family community and state the more complex reason involves how wages and prices change in ways that support more human capacities production when both women and men devote resources both private and public to it