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Fertility Differences between Married and Cohabiting Couples: A Switching Regression Analysis

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Author Info
Junfu Zhang () (Clark University and IZA)
Xue Song () (Thomson Healthcare)

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Abstract

Little is known about why cohabiting couples have fewer children than married couples. We explore the factors that explain the difference in fertility between these two groups using a switching regression analysis, which enables us to quantify the contribution of different factors through a decomposition of the difference. We find that married couples have more children than cohabiting couples primarily because marriage provides stronger incentives for specialization in household production. Unobserved self-selection plays a less important role.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 3245.

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Length: 34 pages
Date of creation: Dec 2007
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3245

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Related research
Keywords: fertility; marriage; cohabitation; switching regression; self-selection; household specialization;

Find related papers by JEL classification:
J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. William H. Greene, 1997. "FIML Estimation of Sample Selection Models for Count Data," Working Papers 97-02, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
  2. Becker, Gary S & Lewis, H Gregg, 1973. "On the Interaction between the Quantity and Quality of Children," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(2), pages S279-88, Part II, . [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. William H. Greene, 1995. "Sample Selection in the Poisson Regression Model," Working Papers 95-06, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Delia Furtado & Nikolaos Theodoropoulos, 2009. "Intermarriage and Immigrant Employment:The Role of Networks," University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics 3-2009, University of Cyprus Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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