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The Effects of Child-Bearing on Married Women's Labor Supply and Earnings: Using Twin Births as a Natural Experiment

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Author Info
Jaisri Gangadharan
Joshua Rosenbloom
Joyce Jacobson
James Wishart Pearre III

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Abstract

Married women's decisions about child-bearing and market work are importantly interrelated. Although there are many estimates of the effects of fertility on female labor supply few of them have adequately addressed the problems of simultaneity inherent in these choices. In this paper, we use exogenous variations in fertility due to twin births to measure the impact of an unanticipated child on married women's labor supply and earnings. We find that the short-run effects of an unanticipated birth on labor supply are appreciable and have increased in magnitude as more mothers enter the labor market. It also appears that the impact of unanticipated births on earnings and wages has changed from 1980 to 1990. In 1980 reduced labor supply caused a temporary drop in earnings, but in 1990 earnings and wages remained depressed well after the labor supply effects of a twin birth had disappeared.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 5647.

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Date of creation: Jul 1996
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5647

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

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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. Juster, F Thomas & Stafford, Frank P, 1991. "The Allocation of Time: Empirical Findings, Behavioral Models, and Problems of Measurement," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 29(2), pages 471-522, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Heckman, James J, 1974. "Shadow Prices, Market Wages, and Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 42(4), pages 679-94, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Bronars, Stephen G & Grogger, Jeff, 1994. "The Economic Consequences of Unwed Motherhood: Using Twin Births as a Natural Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1141-56, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Jacob Mincer, 1962. "Labor Force Participation of Married Women," NBER Chapters, in: Aspects of Labor Economics, pages 63-106 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
  5. Alice Nakamura & Masao Nakamura, 1992. "The econometrics of female labor supply and children," Econometric Reviews, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 11(1), pages 1-71. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Fuchs, Victor R, 1989. "Women's Quest for Economic Equality," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 25-41, Winter. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Moffitt, Robert, 1984. "Profiles of Fertility, Labour Supply and Wages of Married Women: A Complete Life-Cycle Model," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(2), pages 263-78, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Hotz, V Joseph & Miller, Robert A, 1988. "An Empirical Analysis of Life Cycle Fertility and Female Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(1), pages 91-118, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Mroz, Thomas A, 1987. "The Sensitivity of an Empirical Model of Married Women's Hours of Work to Economic and Statistical Assumptions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(4), pages 765-99, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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(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. Cavalcanti, Tiago V. de V. & Tavares, Jose, 2003. "Women Prefer Larger Governments: Female Labor Supply and Public Spending," FEUNL Working Paper Series wp433, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Economia. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Rachel Connelly & Deborah DeGraff & Deborah Levison & Brian McCall, 2006. "Tackling the endogeneity of fertility in the study of women's employment in developing countries: Alternative estimation strategies using data from urban Brazil," Feminist Economics, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 12(4), pages 561-597, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Sandra E. Black & Paul J. Devereux & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2007. "Small Family, Smart Family? Family Size and the IQ Scores of Young Men," NBER Working Papers 13336, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Black, Sandra E. & Devereux, Paul J. & Salvanes, Kjell G., 2004. "The More the Merrier? The Effect of Family Composition on Children's Education," IZA Discussion Papers 1269, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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  5. Ch. LAUER & A.M. WEBER, 2003. "Employment of Mothers after Childbirth : A French-German Comparison," Working Papers ERMES 0309, ERMES, University Paris 2. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Joshua D. Angrist & William N. Evans, 1996. "Children and Their Parents' Labor Supply: Evidence from Exogenous Variation in Family Size," NBER Working Papers 5778, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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