During the conflict in Vietnam, married men with dependents could obtain a deferment from the draft. In 1965, following President Johnson's Executive Order 11241 and a subsequent Selective Service System announcement, the particulars of this policy changed substantially in a way which provided strong incentives for childless American couples to conceive a first-born child. This study examines the effects of the intervention on the decision to start a family. In my empirical analysis, I extract data from the Vital Statistics for the period 1963-1968 and employ a difference-in-differences methodology. The estimated magnitude of the effect is substantial.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by University of Canterbury, Department of Economics and Finance in its series Working Papers in Economics with number
06/10.