Full Citation
Title: Inequality and the Changing Role of Differential Fertility
Citation Type: Working Paper
Publication Year: 2017
ISBN:
ISSN:
DOI:
NSFID:
PMCID:
PMID:
Abstract: Recent public discussion has focused on inequality and its adverse effects on economic growth. One theory is that inequality causes greater differential fertility; the difference in fertility between the poor and rich. Differential fertility yields fewer educated children, as the poor invest less in their numerous children. We show that the relationship between income and fertility has flattened between 1980 and 2010 in the US, a time of increasing inequality, as the rich increased their fertility. These facts challenge the standard theory. We propose that marketization of parental time costs can explain the changing relationship between income and fertility. We show this result both theoretically and quantitatively, after disciplining the model on US data. Without marketization the model yields a quantitatively significant biased estimate of inequality’s impact on education through differential fertility. Policies, such as the minimum wage, that affect the cost of marketization, have a large effect on the fertility and labor supply of high income women. We apply the insights of this theory to the literatures of the economics of childlessness and marital sorting.
Url: http://www.falk.huji.ac.il/sites/default/files/falkheb/files/paper_17-03.pdf
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Bar, Michael; Hazan, Moshe; Leukhina, Oksana; Weiss, David; Zoabi, Hosny
Series Title:
Publication Number: 17.03
Institution: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Pages: 59
Publisher Location: Jerusalem, Israel
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Fertility and Mortality, Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Poverty and Welfare
Countries: