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Title: Essays on the economics of marriage, family and work
Citation Type: Dissertation/Thesis
Publication Year: 2009
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Abstract: These essays examine two factors that affect the marriage, family, and work outcomes of men and women: variation in sex ratios, defined as the number of men in a specified population divided by the number of women, and access to oral contraceptives during late adolescence. Fluctuations in birth rates over time, in conjunction with the observation that women generally marry slightly older men, provide a plausibly exogenous source of moderate variation in sex ratios. In chapter one I use this to investigate the effects of sex ratio fluctuations on basic marriage market outcomes in the U.S. over recent decades. Although I do not find robust evidence that this variation affects the likelihood or average timing of marriage, I find that it is related to the attributes of the spouse to whom one is currently married. When the oral contraceptive was released in 1960, single women under the age of 21 could not legally obtain it in most states. Arguably exogenous changes in state laws later extended access to single women in late adolescence. Chapter two investigates whether having had access to oral contraceptives in late adolescence affects the time use of mothers later in life. Mothers who had access spend a statistically significant 1.6 fewer hours per week in active childcare than their counterparts without access, controlling for the number of children. The largest portion of the difference in childcare is accounted for by a 1.3 hour decrease in time spent on basic childcare tasks each week. Theory predicts that access to oral contraceptives during late adolescence should lead to in increase in the extent to which people with good labor market prospects tend to marry each other. In chapter three I test this with a standard differences-indifferences strategy. Across a wide variety of specifications I find only modest evidence that women's access to the pill affects the pattern of matches in the marriage market.
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Authors: Lavaty, Rosemarie Anne
Institution: University of California, Santa Barbara
Department: Economics
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Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Family and Marriage, Work, Family, and Time
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