IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/econjl/v131y2021i633p1-32..html

The Effect of Fertility on Mothers’ Labor Supply over the Last Two Centuries
[Semiparametric instrumental variables estimation of treatment response models]

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Aaronson
  • Rajeev Dehejia
  • Andrew Jordan
  • Cristian Pop-Eleches
  • Cyrus Samii
  • Karl Schulze

Abstract

Using a compiled data set of 441 censuses and surveys from between 1787 and 2015, representing 103 countries and 51.4 million mothers, we find that: (i) the effect of fertility on labour supply is typically indistinguishable from zero at low levels of development and large and negative at higher levels of development, (ii) the negative gradient is stable across historical and contemporary data, and (iii) the results are robust to identification strategies, model specification, and data construction and scaling. Our results are consistent with changes in the sectoral and occupational structure of female jobs and a standard labour–leisure model.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Aaronson & Rajeev Dehejia & Andrew Jordan & Cristian Pop-Eleches & Cyrus Samii & Karl Schulze, 2021. "The Effect of Fertility on Mothers’ Labor Supply over the Last Two Centuries [Semiparametric instrumental variables estimation of treatment response models]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(633), pages 1-32.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:econjl:v:131:y:2021:i:633:p:1-32.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/ej/ueaa100
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F63 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Economic Development
    • F66 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Labor
    • J0 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • N0 - Economic History - - General
    • N30 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - General, International, or Comparative

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:econjl:v:131:y:2021:i:633:p:1-32.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press or the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/resssea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.