Working Paper: NBER ID: w23717
Authors: Daniel Aaronson; Rajeev Dehejia; Andrew Jordan; Cristian Popeleches; Cyrus Samii; Karl Schulze
Abstract: Using a compiled dataset of 441 censuses and surveys between 1787 and 2015, representing 103 countries and 48.4 million mothers, we find that: (1) the effect of fertility on labor supply is typically indistinguishable from zero at low levels of development and large and negative at higher levels of development; (2) the negative gradient is stable across historical and contemporary data; and (3) the results are robust to identification strategies, model specification, and data construction and scaling. Our results are consistent with changes in the sectoral and occupational structure of female jobs and a standard labor-leisure model.
Keywords: fertility; labor supply; economic development; demographic transition
JEL Codes: J13; J22; N30; O15
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| economic development (O29) | fertility (J13) |
| economic development (O29) | mothers' labor supply (J22) |
| sectoral and occupational structure (J21) | mothers' labor supply (J22) |
| time costs (J30) | mothers' labor supply (J22) |
| fertility (J13) | mothers' labor supply (J22) |
| number of children (J13) | mothers' labor supply (J22) |