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Opting For Families: Recent Trends in the Fertility of Highly Educated Women

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  • Qingyan Shang
  • Bruce A. Weinberg

Abstract

Observers have argued about whether highly-educated women are opting out of their careers and for families. If so, it is natural to expect fertility to increase and, insofar as children are associated with lower employment, further declines in employment. This paper provides a comprehensive study of recent trends in the fertility of college-graduate women. We study fertility at a range of ages; consider both the intensive and extensive margins, explore a range of data sets; and study the period from 1940 to 2006. In contrast to most existing work, we find that college graduate women are indeed opting for families. Fertility increases at almost all ages along both the intensive and extensive margins since the late 1990s or 2000 and this recent increase in fertility is consistent across datasets.

Suggested Citation

  • Qingyan Shang & Bruce A. Weinberg, 2009. "Opting For Families: Recent Trends in the Fertility of Highly Educated Women," NBER Working Papers 15074, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15074
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    13. Qingyan Shang & Bruce Weinberg, 2013. "Opting for families: recent trends in the fertility of highly educated women," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(1), pages 5-32, January.
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    1. Martha J. Bailey & Brad Hershbein & Amalia R. Miller, 2012. "The Opt-In Revolution? Contraception and the Gender Gap in Wages," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 225-254, July.
    2. Natalie Nitsche & Hannah Brückner, 2021. "Late, But Not Too Late? Postponement of First Birth Among Highly Educated US Women," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 37(2), pages 371-403, April.
    3. Delia Furtado, 2015. "Can immigrants help women “have it all”? Immigrant labor and women’s joint fertility and labor supply decisions," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-19, December.
    4. Jose Maria Cabrera, 2011. "Fecundidad e Ingresos en Uruguay," Documentos de Trabajo/Working Papers 1110, Facultad de Ciencias Empresariales y Economia. Universidad de Montevideo..
    5. Moshe Hazan & Hosny Zoabi, 2015. "Do Highly Educated Women Choose Smaller Families?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(587), pages 1191-1226, September.
    6. Lunn, Pete & Fahey, Tony, 2011. "Households and Family Structures in Ireland," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number BKMNEXT202, June.
    7. Joni Hersch, 2013. "Opting out among women with elite education," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 11(4), pages 469-506, December.
    8. Michael Bar & Moshe Hazan & Oksana Leukhina & David Weiss & Hosny Zoabi, 2018. "Why did rich families increase their fertility? Inequality and marketization of child care," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 427-463, December.
    9. Qingyan Shang & Bruce Weinberg, 2013. "Opting for families: recent trends in the fertility of highly educated women," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(1), pages 5-32, January.
    10. Heather Antecol, 2015. "Career and Family Choices Among Elite Liberal Arts Graduates," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(4), pages 1089-1120, August.
    11. Luca Spinesi, 2022. "The Environmental Tax: Effects on Inequality and Growth," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 82(3), pages 529-572, July.
    12. Natalie Nitsche & Hannah Brueckner, 2018. "High and Higher: Fertility of Black and White Women with College and Postgraduate Education in the United States," VID Working Papers 1807, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.
    13. Antecol, Heather, 2010. "The Opt-Out Revolution: A Descriptive Analysis," IZA Discussion Papers 5089, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Hazan, Moshe & Zoabi, Hosny & Weiss, David & Leukhina, Oksana & Bar, Michael, 2017. "Is The Market Pronatalist? Inequality, Differential Fertility, and Growth Revisited," CEPR Discussion Papers 12376, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Pau Baizan & Bruno Arpino & Carlos Eric Delclòs, 2016. "The Effect of Gender Policies on Fertility: The Moderating Role of Education and Normative Context," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 32(1), pages 1-30, February.
    16. Natalie Malak & Md Mahbubur Rahman & Terry A. Yip, 2019. "Baby bonus, anyone? Examining heterogeneous responses to a pro-natalist policy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 32(4), pages 1205-1246, October.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

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