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Title: The Baby Boom, Baby Busts, and Grandmothers

Citation Type: Working Paper

Publication Year: 2011

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Abstract: Studies in family economics and anthropology suggest that grandmothers are a highly valuable source of childcare assistance. As such, availability of grandmothers affects the cost of having children, and hence fertility decisions of young parents. In this paper, we develop a simple model to assess the fertility implications of the fluctuations in both output (as argued by demographers) and grandmother-availability induced child-care costs over the period 1920-1970. Model does a good job of mimicking the bust-boom-bust pattern during this period. When the child-care cost channel is shut down, the models performance weakens significantly; in particular, it fails to capture the bust in the 1960s altogether.

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Authors: Orman, Cuneyt; Gurdal, Mehmet Y.; Goksel, Turkmen

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Institution: University of Munich

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Publisher Location: Munich, Germany

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Family and Marriage

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