Working Paper: NBER ID: w11268
Authors: Raquel Fernández; Alessandra Fogli
Abstract: We study the effect of culture on important economic outcomes by using the 1970 Census to examine the work and fertility behavior of women 30-40 years old, born in the U.S., but whose parents were born elsewhere. We use past female labor force participation and total fertility rates from the country of ancestry as our cultural proxies. These variables should capture, in addition to past economic and institutional conditions, the beliefs commonly held about the role of women in society, i.e. culture. Given the different time and place, only the beliefs embodied in the cultural proxies should be potentially relevant to women's behavior in the US in 1970. We show that these cultural proxies have positive and significant explanatory power for individual work and fertility outcomes, even after controlling for possible indirect effects of culture (e.g., education and spousal characteristics). We examine alternative hypotheses for these positive correlations and show that neither unobserved human capital nor networks are likely to be responsible. We also show that the effect of these cultural proxies is amplified the greater is the tendency for ethnic groups to cluster in the same neighborhoods.
Keywords: Culture; Labor Force Participation; Fertility; Economic Outcomes
JEL Codes: J13; J21; Z10
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Female labor force participation (LFP) in the country of ancestry in 1950 (J19) | Weeks worked per year (J38) |
| Female labor force participation (LFP) in the country of ancestry in 1950 (J19) | Number of children born (J13) |
| Husband's cultural background (J12) | Wife's work outcomes (D13) |
| Cultural proxies (Z10) | Variation in work behavior among women (J29) |
| Cultural proxies (Z10) | Men's work behavior (J29) |
| Cultural beliefs (Z10) | Economic decisions regarding work and family size (J13) |