China's persistently low fertility is associated with fertility inequality, reflected in a U-shaped relationship between household human capital and fertility. We develop an overlapping-generations model showing that this pattern depends on the substitutability of educational inputs. When educational inputs are complementary, fertility is U-shaped in household human capital, with middle-human-capital households having the fewest children; when inputs are substitutable, the relationship is inverted U-shaped. Using China Family Panel Studies data, we find a robust U-shaped relationship between household human capital and fertility, significant complementarity among educational time, monetary investment, and household human capital in children's human-capital formation, and similar patterns across eastern, central, and western China. Complementarity requires households to increase time and monetary inputs jointly, intensifying the quantity-quality trade-off, particularly for middle-human-capital households. Policies that enhance substitutability among educational inputs may therefore mitigate fertility inequality and raise aggregate fertility.
The child quantity-quality (QQ) tradeoff is central to both household decision-making and long-run theories of economic development. Despite extensive research, there is little consensus regarding the sign of the effects of additional siblings on child outcomes. Most previous studies examine the relationship between family size and child quality indirectly through the consequences of the allocation of parental resources, such as educational and labor market achievements. Using Indian data, I present evidence of a quantity-quality tradeoff in direct parental monetary expenditures in shadow education (or private tuition). Exploiting the elder son preference typically observed in the study context, I instrument fertility with gender of the first child, two girls, and same-sex birth. IV estimates show a parity-specific quantity-quality tradeoff. The effects are heterogeneous. In wealthier families or those in urban areas, the trade-off is more pronounced.
We present novel evidence on the motherhood penalty in female employment, investigating its evolution over time and the role of family policy in mitigating this negative effect. Using a dynamic framework, we analyze seven European countries from 2003 to 2020, taking into account the potential endogeneity of fertility decisions. We find that childbirth affects female employment with different intensities across countries. Such an effect strengthens over time and persists as children grow up in most countries. Higher spending on family policies is associated with higher employment rates among new mothers. Disentangling cash and in-kind transfers, we find that the cash benefits have a slightly negative effect, while in-kind support is positive. However, the mere distinction may be insufficient for designing effective family policies, as the impact of spending interacts with multiple social and institutional factors, including gender equality in caring activities and inclusive labor markets.
The movie industry offers a useful context to study consumer-driven gender biases, as it enables observation of how the gender of leading actors, directors, and producers relates to movie performance outcomes. Using a dataset of over 5,000 globally produced movies from 1998 to 2008, we document a distinct non-linear relationship between female representation in leading roles and audience ratings. Specifically, ratings initially decline significantly as the number of female leads increases, reaching a turning point at approximately two female leads, beyond which ratings stabilize or slightly improve (convex pattern). This negative impact on audience ratings is driven by male viewers, whose presence diminishes as female representation grows. In contrast, professional film awards exhibit a concave pattern peaking significantly at two female leads. Further accounting for selection, we reveal that audience gender biases persist even after accounting for the selective attrition of male viewers from movies featuring female leads.
We examine the impact of exposure to immigrants during formative years on attitudes toward immigration later on in life. Our research design combines granular administrative data on immigrant shares in Germany with longitudinal individual-level data on immigration sentiment. Using panel fixed-effect estimates, identification leverages both spatial variation at critical ages and time variation induced by birth cohorts. We find that individuals exposed to higher shares of immigrants in formative years exhibit more negative attitudes toward immigration in adulthood. The impact is small in magnitude but specific to critical age and robust to contemporaneous immigration exposure. Our findings suggest that early and unmediated exposure to a diverse social and ethnic environment may have long-lasting consequences for the formation of immigration preferences.
This paper studies socioeconomic disparities in Mexico based on sexual orientation and gender identity using data from a nationally representative survey collected between 2021 and 2022 (N=44,189). It finds pronounced levels of self-reported discrimination and rejection among LGBTQ+ individuals throughout their lives. It also estimates that these groups' raw rates of labor force participation and unemployment diverge from those of their heterosexual and cisgender counterparts. Additionally, a heterogeneity analysis provides novel insights into nuanced disparities within LGBTQ+ groups.
Many developed economies face declining fertility rates and aging populations, driven significantly by the rising prevalence of childless households. This paper extends a simple overlapping generations (OLG) model to examine how this trend affects household utility. By assuming heterogeneous preferences for child-rearing, the model treats the proportion of childless households as endogenous, determined by utility maximization. The analysis reveals that an increase in childlessness generally exerts a negative impact on overall household utility. Furthermore, the study evaluates childcare support policies, balancing the distortionary effects of higher taxes against the benefits of reduced rearing costs and enhanced social security from a larger future workforce. Numerical simulations suggest that while most households favor the introduction of childcare support, their preferred tax rates vary significantly. These findings highlight the complex trade-offs in policy design when addressing demographic shifts through fiscal interventions.
This study examines the impact of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-specific laws criminalizing HIV non-disclosure, exposure, and transmission on voluntary testing, focusing on the role of HIV stigma. HIV criminalization signals state endorsement of discrimination against HIV-positive individuals, thereby amplifying stigma. I use a regression discontinuity design that exploits the enactment timing of legislation in Mali during a household survey offering voluntary HIV testing, where family members could infer who was tested and speculate that those tested were HIV-positive. Following the legislation, women's testing uptake declined, especially in rural areas, with stronger effects among those with radios and without completed formal education. Women, being economically dependent on men, are vulnerable to HIV-related mistreatment from family members. Therefore, fear of being considered seropositive by family members might have more strongly discouraged women's testing uptake compared with men's.
Recent studies have shown that fertility was adversely impacted by the Great Recession of 2008 in both developed and developing nations. We look back further in time to explore how the Great Depression of the 1930s affected fertility rates across the United States. Our main results suggest that a one percent increase in state personal income per capita is associated with a 0.17 to 0.25 percent increase in fertility the next year, which is consistent with estimates found during the post-World War II economy in the United States. Thus, we conclude that fertility decisions were indeed pro-cyclical during the 1930s.
This paper surveys the literature on gender differences in religiosity and on how religion shapes gender-related economic and social outcomes. Part I examines why women tend to be more religious than men, reviewing leading explanations from sociology, economics, and psychology. Part II analyzes how religion affects gender norms and attitudes, education, labor market participation, fertility, health, legal institutions, and discrimination. Across domains, we distinguish between effects driven by individual religiosity-such as beliefs and religious practice-and those driven by religious denomination. We emphasize studies that employ credible causal identification strategies, including natural experiments, instrumental variables, and policy reforms, while also reviewing correlational evidence for context. Overall, the literature suggests that religious teachings and participation often reinforce traditional gender roles, influencing women's education, labor supply, and fertility decisions, though important heterogeneity and exceptions exist. We also highlight instances in which secular reforms or religious movements have altered these outcomes. The survey concludes by identifying gaps in the literature and outlining priorities for future empirical research.
The interaction between socioeconomic status, place of residence, and life expectancy remains poorly understood. This study advances this understanding using administrative data from the German Pension Insurance combined with multiple data sources on place characteristics. I provide novel estimates for remaining life expectancy at age 65 by lifetime earnings quintiles and geographic areas (NUTS2), revealing substantial heterogeneity in the link between lifetime earnings and life expectancy across NUTS2 regions in West Germany. Subsequently, I conduct a correlational analysis differentiated by socioeconomic status to investigate which place factors are associated with longevity and examine whether the interaction has changed over time. Strikingly, the correlations between place factors and life expectancy are largely homogeneous in magnitude and direction for individuals at the top and the bottom of the lifetime earnings distribution. Furthermore, I find suggestive evidence that the importance of place for the life expectancy of low-income individuals has decreased over time.
Exploiting intergenerationally linked data from the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe, we examine the association between the home-leaving ages of parents and those of their daughters and sons. We propose a framework in which intergenerational associations between nest-leaving patterns of successive generations might stem from three channels of transmission, and we rely on detailed information on three generations of individuals to establish the strength of each channel. We find that a 1-year increase in the age at which a parent left home is associated with children leaving the nest approximately 1 month later. We provide evidence supporting our claim that the bulk of this association is due to direct cultural transmission of home-leaving ages stemming from the inheritance of preferences on the optimal timing of life-course events, such as cohabitation, marriage, and parenthood.
A growing body of evidence finds that rural electrification reduces fertility, typically by expanding women's opportunities outside the home and raising the opportunity cost of childbearing. We examine electrification in post-revolutionary rural Iran, where electricity expanded rapidly but female labor force participation remained low. Using a large panel of villages observed in the 1986, 1996, and 2006 censuses, we show that while Ordinary Least Squares estimates align with the broader literature in suggesting a negative association between electrification and fertility, instrumental variable estimates exploiting elevation-based variation reveal the opposite: villages with longer exposure to electricity experienced higher fertility. This positive effect is strongest in provinces with lower female labor force participation, indicating that the substitution channel emphasized in prior research was weak in the Iranian context. These findings highlight the importance of context in shaping demographic responses to infrastructure and suggest that electrification's effects on fertility are not universally negative.
Previous studies document links between early-life exposures and life-cycle outcomes, but fewer examine how local labor market shocks during early life affect old-age male mortality. This article studies this relationship using a large-scale deindustrialization shock: the decline of New England's textile industry during the 1920s and 1930s. Consistent with prior work, we find small effects on migration and limited changes in counties' sociodemographic composition after deindustrialization. Using Social Security Administration death records linked to the 1900-1940 historical censuses and difference-in-differences event studies, we find reduced longevity among men born in highly exposed counties, especially among non-migrant families and those in non-urban areas. The estimates imply intent-to-treat effects of about 3.6 months, while treatment-on-the-treated calculations suggest longevity reductions of about 4.2 years for children of affected families. Using 1950-1960 census data, we also find reductions in schooling, high school completion, and socioeconomic standing.
In this paper, we leverage newly available rich administrative data to study the heterogeneous evolution of fertility and newborn health during the pandemic. We focus on Tuscany, a representative region of Italy, which was one of the first countries to experience the severe impact of the COVID-19 outbreak in early 2020. Our findings indicate a decline in the number of births relative to the pre-pandemic trend in late 2020 and early 2021, roughly nine to twelve months after the pandemic onset. However, starting in March 2021, birth numbers consistently exceeded the pre-pandemic trend, resulting in a cumulative “baby bump” compared to the counterfactual scenario. This aggregate increase conceals significant heterogeneity across sociodemographic groups, with positive deviations entirely driven by native, educated, and employed parents. During the same period, newborn health indicators showed no signs of deterioration and, if anything, slightly improved.
This paper investigates the magnitude and drivers of ethnic and religious disparities in Female Labor Force Participation (FLFP) in Syria. Using census data and the Gelbach decomposition method, the analysis reveals substantial FLFP gaps across groups, reaching up to 18 percentage points. To understand the factors underlying these gaps, the analysis exploits the heterogeneity in economic development, demographic profiles, educational attainment, and geography across towns and villages. The findings indicate that differences in age distribution, income levels, education, and public sector employment shares are the primary contributors to FLFP gaps. While social norms are often considered key determinants of FLFP, their role is assessed using gender parity indices for educational enrollment and attainment but shows little explanatory power for ethnic and religious disparities in FLFP. These results highlight the importance of structural economic and demographic factors over cultural constraints in shaping group differences in FLFP in Syria.
Marriage rates in Korea have been declining at an unprecedented pace in the recent two decades. Drawing on the classical economic theory of marriage as a rational choice, we compute local aggregate economic values of prime-age working men and women to examine the relationship between the relative values of men and marriage rates. The relative values of men fell dramatically by 40% during this period, undermining the economic justification of marriage under unequal allocation of housework. The two-way fixed effects estimation using region-year transitory variations shows that a 1% decrease in the relative values of men was associated with a 0.088% decrease in marriage rates. To explain the precipitous convergence of economic values between the two genders, we decompose the changes in the relative values into four components - (gender-neutral) structural changes, (gender-specific) industrial segregation, (gender-neutral) wage growth, and (gender-specific) wage gaps within industries - to measure their contributions to secular marriage decline. In the 2000s, both the alleviated industrial segregation and the structural changes toward industries with higher female proportions played a major role. On the other hand, the impact of reduced gender wage gaps within industries also became prominent in the 2010s.
How have preventive and curative medical breakthroughs shaped life expectancy and the dispersion of age at death in the United States over the past century? We address this question by developing a life-cycle model in which both health and lifespan are endogenous. The model distinguishes between preventive innovations, which reduce the incidence of disease, and curative advances, which lower mortality risks associated with existing health conditions. Our quantitative analysis shows that while both types of medical innovation have contributed to increased life expectancy since 1935, curative advances have been the primary driver of the decline in the dispersion of age at death. Medical innovations have also improved welfare - measured in terms of a consumption-equivalent metric - by an average of 0.11% per year, with curative advances representing the most significant contribution. These findings are robust across different scenarios and parametrization strategies.
Using three waves (2011–15) of CHARLS data, we analyze the short-term effects of widowhood on cognitive function among older Chinese. Fixed-effect models show that widowhood has significant adverse effects on cognition for rural elders but not for urban ones. Furthermore, compared to rural men, rural women exhibit greater declines in cognition, especially in fluid cognition. We explore the possible mechanism from the neighborhood perspective. The results show that community sports and entertainment facilities and public services can effectively mitigate the negative impact of widowhood on cognitive function for rural widows. Sports and entertainment facilities can mainly enhance word recall ability, especially delayed word recall. Public services such as elderly health centers focusing on the healthcare function for the elderly can also improve the word recall ability of rural widows. On the other hand, family-based elderly care centers mainly increase the cognition ability of mental intactness.
I study the effects of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) on labor market outcomes among potentially eligible immigrants. DACA allowed undocumented immigrants to participate in the labor market without fear of deportation, which might be expected to increase the probability of working and allowing workers to move to higher-skilled occupations. However, using a regression discontinuity design, I find very little to no effects on the probability of working and the likelihood of working in high-skilled jobs among DACA-eligible immigrants. The confidence intervals permit modest effects on these variables, but rule out large ones. My estimates are local, mainly applicable to older individuals close to the age threshold, and not broadly generalizable to younger DACA-eligible groups.
