Full Citation
Title: Female Relative Wages, Household Specialization and Fertility
Citation Type: Journal Article
Publication Year: 2017
ISBN:
ISSN:
DOI:
NSFID:
PMCID:
PMID:
Abstract: Falling fertility rates have often been linked to rising female wages. However, over the last 40 years the US total fertility rate has been rather stable while female wages have continued to grow. Over the same period, women's hours spent on housework have declined, but men's have increased. I propose a model in which households are not perfectly specialized, but both men and women contribute to home production. As the gender wage gap narrows, the time allocations of men and women converge, and while fertility falls at first, the decline stops when female wages are close to male's. Rising relative wages increase women's labor supply and due to higher opportunity cost lower fertility at first, but they also lead to a reallocation of home production and child care from women to men, and a marketization. I find that both are important in understanding why fertility did not decline further. In a further quantitative exercise I show that the model performs well in matching fertility over the entire 20th century, including the overall decline, the baby boom, and the recent stabilization.
Url: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1094202517300194
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Siegel, Christian
Periodical (Full): Review of Economic Dynamics
Issue: 1
Volume: 24
Pages: 152-174
Data Collections: IPUMS CPS, IPUMS Time Use - ATUS, IPUMS Time Use - AHTUS
Topics: Fertility and Mortality, Labor Force and Occupational Structure
Countries: