IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/deg/conpap/c011_026.html

The Baby Boom and World War II: The Role of Labor Market Experience

Author

Listed:
  • Matthias Doepke
  • Moshe Hazan
  • Yishay D. Maoz

Abstract

The past century has witnessed major changes in the economic choices of American women. Over the long term, there has been a marked trend towards lower fertility and higher female labor force participation. However, change did not occur in a uniform fashion: during the post-war Baby Boom, fertility rates increased substantially, until the long-term downward trend reestablished itself in the 1960s. Similarly, the labor market participation of younger women declined for a while during the same period. What can explain these reversals? In this paper, we propose a joint explanation for these changes through a single shock: the demand for female labor during World War II. Many of the women of the war generation continued to work after the war. We argue that this crowded out younger women from the labor market, who chose to have more children instead.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthias Doepke & Moshe Hazan & Yishay D. Maoz, 2006. "The Baby Boom and World War II: The Role of Labor Market Experience," DEGIT Conference Papers c011_026, DEGIT, Dynamics, Economic Growth, and International Trade.
    • Handle: RePEc:deg:conpap:c011_026
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://degit.sam.sdu.dk/papers/degit_11/C011_026.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Francine D. Blau & Lawrence M. Kahn, 2000. "Gender Differences in Pay," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 75-99, Fall.
    2. Claudia Olivetti, 2006. "Changes in Women's Hours of Market Work: The Role of Returns to Experience," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 9(4), pages 557-587, October.
    3. Goldin, Claudia, 1992. "Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195072709.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Michele Boldrin & Larry E. Jones & Alice Schoonbroodt, 2005. "From Busts to Booms in Babies and Goodies," Levine's Bibliography 784828000000000379, UCLA Department of Economics.
    2. Goksel, Türkmen & Gurdal, Mehmet Y. & Orman, Cuneyt, 2014. "The baby boom, baby busts, and the role of grandmothers in childcare," MPRA Paper 65438, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Schoonbroodt, Alice & Jones, Larry, 2007. "Baby busts and baby booms: the fertility response to shocks in dynastic models," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 0706, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    4. Orman, Cuneyt & Goksel, Turkmen & Gurdal, Mehmet Y, 2011. "The Baby Boom, Baby Busts, and Grandmothers," MPRA Paper 28782, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rania Gihleb & Osnat Lifshitz, 2022. "Dynamic Effects of Educational Assortative Mating on Labor Supply," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 46, pages 302-327, October.
    2. Michelle Rendall, 2011. "The Service Sector and Female Market Work: Europe vs US," 2011 Meeting Papers 778, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    3. Macunovich, Diane J., 2009. "Reversals in the Patterns of Women's Labor Supply in the U.S., 1976-2009," IZA Discussion Papers 4512, IZA Network @ LISER.
    4. Claudia Olivetti & Barbara Petrongolo, 2016. "The Evolution of Gender Gaps in Industrialized Countries," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 405-434, October.
    5. Hela Jeddi & Dhafer Malouche, 2015. "Wage gap between men and women in Tunisia," Papers 1511.02229, arXiv.org.
    6. Lee, Bun Song & Jang, Soomyung & Sarkar, Jayanta, 2008. "Women's labor force participation and marriage: The case of Korea," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 138-154, April.
    7. Fernández, Raquel & Wong, Joyce Cheng, 2011. "The Disappearing Gender Gap: The Impact of Divorce, Wages, and Preferences on Education Choices and Women's Work," IZA Discussion Papers 6046, IZA Network @ LISER.
    8. Tim Leunig & Maria Stanfors, 2010. "Piece-rates and prosperity: evidence from the late nineteenth-century tobacco industry," Working Papers 10003, Economic History Society.
    9. Andrés Erosa & Luisa Fuster & Gueorgui Kambourov & Richard Rogerson, 2022. "Hours, Occupations, and Gender Differences in Labor Market Outcomes," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 543-590, July.
    10. Ghazala Azmat & Rosa Ferrer, 2017. "Gender Gaps in Performance: Evidence from Young Lawyers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(5), pages 1306-1355.
    11. Elisa Keller, 2013. "Occupational Complexity, Experience, and the Gender Wage Gap," 2013 Meeting Papers 348, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Ng, Wung Lik & Wang, Yin-Chi, 2020. "Waiting as a signal: Why women are delaying fertility?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 471-479.
    13. Popov, Alexander & Zaharia, Sonia, 2019. "Credit market competition and the gender gap in labor force participation: Evidence from local markets," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 25-59.
    14. Sara de la Rica & Juan José Dolado & Cecilia García-Peñalosa, 2008. "On gender gaps and self-fulfilling expectations: Theory, policies and some empirical evidence," Working Papers 2008-24, FEDEA.
    15. Sara Rica & Juan Dolado & Cecilia Garcia Peñalosa, 2012. "GINI DP 24: On gender gaps and self-fulfilling expectations: An alternative approach based on paid-for-training," GINI Discussion Papers 24, AIAS, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies.
    16. Paul Gomme & Emanuela Cardia, 2009. "The Household Revolution:Childcare, Housework, and Female Labor Force Participation," 2009 Meeting Papers 773, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    17. Larry E. JONES & Rodolfo E. MANUELLI & Ellen R. McGRATTAN, 2015. "Why Are Married Women Working so much ?," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(1), pages 75-114, March.
    18. Erosa, Andres & Fuster, Luisa & Restuccia, Diego, 2016. "A quantitative theory of the gender gap in wages," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 165-187.
    19. Zvi Eckstein & Osnat Lifshitz, 2011. "Dynamic Female Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(6), pages 1675-1726, November.
    20. Bredemeier, Christian & Jüßen, Falko, 2009. "Household Labor Supply and Home Services in a General-Equilibrium Model with Heterogeneous Agents," Ruhr Economic Papers 91, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J10 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - General
    • J20 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:deg:conpap:c011_026. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Jan Pedersen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iehhsdk.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.