Fertility and childlessness in the United States

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 re...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe American economic review Vol. 105; no. 6; pp. 1852 - 1882
Main Authors Baudin, Thomas, de la Croix, David, Gobbi, Paula E
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States American Economic Association 01.06.2015
Subjects
Allein stehende Frau
Child rearing
Childlessness
Children
Children & youth
Costs
Decomposition
Economic theory
Education
Educational attainment
Ehefrau
Female fertility
Fertility
Fertility rates
Frau
Fruchtbarkeit
Geburtenentwicklung
Geschlechtsspezifik
Health technology assessment
Heirat
Kinderlosigkeit
Mann
Marriage
Men
Mothers
Poverty
Qualifikation
Quote
Single status
Single women
Sozioökonomischer Faktor
Studies
U.S.A
USA
Women
Womens education
United States > US
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Summary: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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ISSN:0002-8282
1944-7981
DOI:10.1257/aer.20120926