A model of endogenous divorce and endogenous fertility

This paper examines the interaction between decisions on divorce and fertility. The analysis generates two major implications. Firstly, it complements the existing literature on endogenous fertility to explain why population growth and economic growth can be negatively correlated after an economy develops to a certain level. Secondly, it indicates that economic development leads to a simultaneous increase in divorce rates and decrease in fertility rates. Received: 05 February 1999/Accepted: 20 December 1999     

The empowerment of women,fertility, and child mortality: Towards a theoretical analysis

This paper examines one avenue through which female autonomy impinges on fertility and child mortality in developing countries. A simple model is set out in which couples are motivated to have children for old age security purposes. The decisions of a couple regarding fertility and allocation of resources for the healthcare of their children are made within a bargaining framework. An increase in female autonomy translating into an increase in the relative bargaining power or the threat point utility of mothers is shown to reduce fertility and also to reduce child mortality rates. Paradoxically, the increase in female autonomy within a household may increase the disadvantage suffered by female children in that household with respect to survival. Received: 4 August 1999/Accepted: 7 September 2000     

The socioeconomic consequences of young women's childbearing: Reconciling disparate evidence

Recent studies have begun to examine rigorously the links between early childbearing and subsequent socioeconomic status. Prominent in this literature has been a set of analyses that have used sibling fixed effects models to control for omitted variables bias. These studies report that the siblings difference procedure leads to smaller estimates of the effects of teen fertility than does standard regression analysis. While it is well known that the siblings fixed effects procedure makes strong assumptions regarding the type of omitted variables and is not necessarily robust to alternative assumptions, the assumptions of the procedure have not been explicitly examined. This paper uses 1979–1992 data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to compare estimates of the income and education consequences of teenage and young adult fertility from standard regression and siblings fixed effects models with estimates from more general, alternative siblings models. Received: 19 January 1998/Accepted: 6 April 1999     

Fertility and the Easterlin hypothesis: an assessment of the literature

Focusing just on the fertility aspects of the Easterlin hypothesis, this paper offers a critical assessment – rather than just a selective citation – of the extensive fertility literature generated by Easterlin, and a complete inventory of data and methodologies in seventy-six published analyses. With an equal number of micro- and macro-level analyses using North American data (twenty-two), the „track record” of the hypothesis is the same in both venues, with fifteen providing significant support in each case. The literature suggests unequivocal support for the relativity of the income concept in fertility, but is less clear regarding the source(s) of differences in material aspirations, and suggests that the observed relationship between fertility and cohort size has varied across countries and time periods due to the effects of additional factors not included in most models. Received: 16 July 1996 / Accepted: 26 September 1997     

The English language fluency and occupational success of ethnic minority immigrant men living in English metropolitan areas

This paper examines two crucial aspects of the assimilation experience of ethnic minority immigrants in the United Kingdom. It explores the determinants of their English language (speaking) fluency and the key role such skills play in their occupational success. Our sample is derived from the Fourth National Survey of Ethnic Minorities undertaken in 1994. Uniquely this data contains an interviewer-assessed measure of English language fluency. Importantly, we also attempt to control for possible endogeneity bias in the estimates of the effect of language fluency on occupational success. We find that fluency is associated with significantly higher mean hourly occupational wages. Received: 26 November 1999/Accepted: 03 August 2000     

Labor market assimilation and the self-employment decision of immigrant entrepreneurs

This paper uses data from the 1980 and 1990 U.S. Censuses to study labor market assimilation of self-employed immigrants. Separate earnings functions for the self-employed and wage/salary workers are estimated. To control for endogenous sorting into the sectors, models of the self-employment decision are estimated. Self-employed immigrants are found to do substantially better in the labor market than wage/salary immigrants. Earnings of self-employed immigrants are predicted to converge with natives' wage/salary earnings at about age 30 and natives' self-employed earnings at about age 40. Including the self-employed in the sample reduces the immigrant-native earnings gap by, on average, 14%. Received: 10 November 1999/Accepted: 3 August 2000     

The macroeconomics of fertility in small open economies: A test of the Becker-Barro model for The Netherlands and New Zealand

Becker and Barro (1988) formulated a theoretical model which identified a range of macroeconomic variables which can temporarily or permanently affect fertility in small open economies. This article tests the Becker-Barro model with relevant data which covers most of the 20th century for two small open economies, namely The Netherlands and New Zealand. The results show that government subsidies for having children have a strong positive effect on fertility, while the provision of public pensions has a strong negative effect. The degree of intergenerational altruism appears to have been declining. Moreover, there is only weak support for the hypothesis that real interest rates positively influence fertility. Received: 2 March 1998/Accepted: 1 September 1999     

Modeling female fertility using inflated count data models

For modeling complete female fertility we propose a zero-and-two-inflated count data model, which accounts for a relative excess of both zero and two children. As the underlying distribution of counts we use the standard Poisson distribution and the more general Gamma count distribution. We compare our proposed model with standard count data models by using data on complete fertilities for a sample of Swedish women. The preferred specification for Swedish fertility data is the zero-and-two inflated Gamma count data model. The estimated “extra” probabilities of zero and two children, when modelled as individual specific probabilities, vary substantially across individuals, with mean of 0.05 and 0.16, respectively. These extra probabilities show that women who formed a family later in life have a higher probability of being childless, and women of our youngest cohort have a higher probability of forming a two-child family. Received: 7 January 1999/Accepted: 19 May 1999     

Did the association between fertility and female employment within OECD countries really change its sign?

Recent literature finds that in OECD countries the cross-country correlation between the total fertility rate and the female labor force participation rate, which until the beginning of the 1980s had a negative value, has since acquired a positive value. This result is (explicitly or implicitly) often interpreted as evidence for a changing sign in the time-series association between fertility and female employment within OECD countries. This paper shows that the time-series association between fertility and female employment does not demonstrate a change in sign. Instead, the reversal in the sign of the cross-country correlation is most likely due to a combination of two elements: First, the presence of unmeasured country-specific factors and, second, country-heterogeneity in the magnitude of the negative time-series association between fertility and female employment. However, the paper does find evidence for a reduction in the negative time-series association between fertility and female employment after about 1985.I benefited from stimulating discussions with Arnstein Aassve, Pau Baizan, Francesco Billari, Henriette Engelhardt, Hans-Peter Kohler and Alexia Prskawetz and a seminar in Rostock. Further, I am grateful to two anonymous referees for very useful suggestions that improved essentially the content of the paper. In addition, I thank Susan Masur, Susann Backer, and Elizabeth Zach for language editing. The views expressed in this paper are the authors own views and do not necessarily represent those of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. Responsible editor: Junsen Zhang.     

Demographic transition and economic growth: Empirical evidence from Greece

Over the past decades, due to a combination of declining fertility rates and rising life expectancies, most industrialized countries have experienced aging populations and low numbers of young populations that may pose economic problems in the future. This paper investigates the relationship first between fertility rate and infant mortality rate and second among demographic changes, real wages and real output in Greece over the period 1960–96. When we control for fluctuations in overall economic activity and the labor market on the bivariate relationship between fertility and mortality rates, the evidence suggests that Granger-causation must exist in at least one direction. The results show that in the long run a decrease in infant mortality rates, taking into consideration economic performance and the labor market, causes a reduction in fertility rates. Also, employing the vector error-correction models, the variance decomposition analysis and the impulse response functions, the empirical results support the endogeneity of fertility choice to infant mortality, the labor market and the growth process. Received: 16 May 1999/Accepted: 18 September 2000     

Children as insurance

This paper presents a dynamic model of fertility decisions in which children serve as an incomplete insurance good. The model incorporates uncertainty about future income and the survival of children as well as a discrete representation of the number of children. It contributes to the understanding of the negative relation between fertility and education, shows why parents may demand children even if the return is negative, and explains why fertility might rise with increasing income when income is low and decrease when income is high. Furthermore, the model can account for the decline in fertility when the risk of infant and child mortality decreases. Finally, the implications for empirical tests of the demand for children are also examined. Received: 8 September 1998/Accepted: 9 June 1999     

An econometric and neoclassical analysis of the timing and spacing of births in Canada from 1950 to 1990

This paper estimates a reduced form neoclassical model of Canadian fertility dynamics using an econometric technique that integrates several features not usually found in the demographic and economic literature. We find considerable support for the neoclassical model. We also find that correlated unobservables and parity stopping effects play an important role in Canadian fertility dynamics as well as other socio-demographic features of Canadian women. However, we fail to totally characterize the important drops in the fertility rate that took place for this era. Received: 2 May 1996 / Accepted: 27 March 1997     

IRCA's impact on the occupational concentration and mobility of newly-legalized Mexican men

We examine the occupational concentration and mobility of a group of unauthorized Mexican men who received amnesty under IRCA to shed light on the role of legal status in the assimilation process. Initially these men are concentrated in a small number of traditional migrant jobs. Although their occupational mobility rate is high, it partly represents churning through these same occupations. When we consider the direction – either upward or downward – of occupational change, we find that English language ability and the characteristics of the occupation, itself, are strongly correlated with mobility before legalization. After legalization, few characteristics surpass in importance the common experience of having received amnesty. Received: 22 July 1997/Accepted: 2 February 1999     

Immigrant quality and assimilation: a review of the U.S. literature

Empirical research on US immigrants is reviewed: their productivity and assimilation; their contribution and use of public services; and their impact on native Americans. I discuss the characteristics of cohorts of immigrants that enter the United States at different times, and then quantify the assimilation of immigrants, typically in terms of economic productivity of immigrants compared with natives. Few have found quantifiable negative effects of immigrants on native wages or unemployment in local labor markets, but a more general equilibrium approach than has been empirically implemented may be needed to draw any conclusions regarding the distributional consequences of immigration. Received: 22 September 1995 / Accepted: 2 March 1997     

Skill premium effects on fertility and female labor force supply

In the last twenty years the United States has seen a positive relationship between female labor supply and total fertility rates, which differs from the pattern observed over the preceding years. We construct a general equilibrium overlapping generations model capable of generating this changing relationship between fertility and female labor supply. We argue that skilled biased technological change in recent decades has increased the skill premium and has therefore decreased the relative cost of (unskilled) child care services. The positive effect of the increase in female mean wages on fertility rates, and the inducement for labor force participation provided by the reduction in the relative cost of child care services, generated the positive relationship between fertility rates and female labor force participation in the last two decades.All correspondence to Amaia Iza. This paper has benefited particularly from comments by Juan Carlos Conesa, Pedro Mira and Sara de la Rica. We also acknowledge countless conversations with María Paz Espinosa and useful comments from Jaime Alonso, Jose María Da-Rocha, Tim Kehoe, José Victor Rios-Rull, when the paper was presented at the IV Workshop of Dynamic Macroeconomics held in Vigo (Spain, July 1999) and in Universidade de Vigo (October, 2000). We also thank an anonymous referee whose comments enabled us to improve the paper considerably. Financial support from Universidad del País Vasco 9UPV 00035.321-13511/2001, Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia PB097-0620, MCYT BEC2000/1394 and Instituto de la mujer (Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales) MTAS 33/00 is gratefully acknowledged. Any remaining errors are the authors responsibility. Responsible editor: Junsen Zhang.     

Who takes care of the children? The quantity-quality model revisited

We study the Becker and Lewis (1973) quantity-quality model of children adding an explicit child care time constraint for parents. Parents can take care of the children themselves or purchase day care. Our results are: (i) If there only is own care, a quantity-quality trade-off, different from that of Becker and Lewis (1973), arises. The income effect on fertility is positive if child quantity is a closer complement than child quality to the consumption of goods. (ii) If, instead, there is a combination of purchased and own care, the effect of income on fertility is ambiguous, even if quantity of children is a normal good in the standard sense. This is the Becker and Lewis (1973) result extended to a situation with a binding child care time constraint. The conclusion is that the Becker and Lewis (1973) result holds as long as at least some child care is purchased. Received: 12 November 1999/Accepted: 1 September 2000     

Fertility of the jews

The objectives of this paper were to review and summarize the existing literature on Jewish fertility and to discuss the highlights of data on fertility trends and differentials based on survey data obtained on the Jewish population of the metropolitan area of Providence, Rhode Island. The literature consistently confirmed the finding of lower fertility among Jews since the 1880's in the United States and for the last seventy-five years in a variety of European countries.A review of available data on fertility trends and differentials within the Jewish population indicated contradictory and inconsistent findings. The Providence survey data pointed to changing patterns of fertility among Jews and clarified a number of seeming inconsistencies. These data suggested (1) the pre-World War II decline and postwar recovery of Jewish fertility; (2) the change from an inverse relationship of social class and Jewish fertility among first-generation Jews to a direct relationship among second- and third-generation Jews; (3) the changing relationship of religiosity and Jewish fertility, which reflects social class changes.Finally, an attempt is made to clarify the interpretation of these and related findings by placing the analysis of Jewish fertility in the context of assimilation and acculturation.     

The performance of immigrants in the Norwegian labor market

This paper tests the assimilation hypothesis with Norwegian data. Using both cross-section and cohort analyses, the results show that the 1970–1979 immigrant cohort experienced an earnings growth of about 11% between 1980 and 1990, when their earnings profile was compared to that of natives. This is lower than the 19% assimilation rate predicted by the cross-section method. On the contrary, the results reveal a rapid earnings divergence across cohorts, and between the 1960–1969 cohort and natives. It is also shown that the „quality” of successive immigrant waves has declined over time, thus biasing the cross-section estimates of assimilation. Received: 8 August 1995 / Accepted: 7 January 1997     

Transitions from employment among young Norwegian workers

In a large representative sample of young Norwegian workers, we estimate gross transitions to unemployment, education, and other exits in a multinomial logit. In line with received literature, we find that individuals with high education, experience, and income have significantly lower probabilities of job exits. While female education rates have increased to surpass those of males, female labour market outcomes are still more responsive to family related background characteristics as compared with the outcomes for males. Received: 17 October 1996/Accepted: 5 March 1999