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Partisan Fertility and Presidential Elections

Author

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  • Dahl, Gordon
  • Lu, Runjing

    (University of Alberta)

  • Mullins, William

    (UC San Diego)

Abstract

Changes in political leadership drive sharp changes in public policy and partisan beliefs about the future. We exploit the surprise 2016 election of Trump to identify the effects of a shift in political power on one of the most consequential household decisions: whether to have a child. Republican-leaning counties experience a sharp and persistent increase in fertility relative to Democratic counties, a shift amounting to 1.2 to 2.2% of the national fertility rate. In addition, Hispanics see fertility fall relative to non-Hispanics, especially compared to rural or evangelical whites.

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  • Dahl, Gordon & Lu, Runjing & Mullins, William, 2021. "Partisan Fertility and Presidential Elections," SocArXiv yjveb, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:yjveb
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/yjveb
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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