Fertility and Childlessness in the United States | Zendy

Thierry Baudin | Zendy; David de la Croix | Zendy; Paula E. Gobbi | Zendy

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Fertility and Childlessness in the United States

Author(s) -

Thierry Baudin,

David de la Croix,

Paula E. Gobbi

Publication year - 2015

Publication title -

american economic review

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

SCImago Journal Rank - 16.936

H-Index - 297

eISSN - 1944-7981

pISSN - 0002-8282

DOI - 10.1257/aer.20120926

Subject(s) - childlessness , fertility , economics , margin (machine learning) , total fertility rate , demographic economics , poverty , productivity , demography , population , family planning , economic growth , sociology , research methodology , machine learning , computer science

We develop a theory of fertility, distinguishing its intensive margin from its extensive margin. The deep parameters are identified using facts from the 1990 US Census: (i) fertility of mothers decreases with education; (ii) childlessness exhibits a U-shaped relationship with education; (iii) the relationship between marriage rates and education is hump-shaped for women and increasing for men. We estimate that 2.5 percent of women were childless because of poverty and 8.1 percent because of high opportunity cost of childrearing. Over time, historical trends in total factor productivity and in education led to a U-shaped response in childlessness rates while fertility of mothers decreased.

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