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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Carnicelli, Lauro (LABORE Labour Institute for Economic Research); Morando, Greta (University of Sheffield) |
| Abstract: | We study how maternal preferences interact with education to shape the motherhood penalty. Using rich Finnish registry data and the quasi-random gender of the firstborn child, we show that mothers across education groups display a mild preference for daughters, reflected in their fertility and parental leave choices. Yet this shared preference translates into divergent long-run outcomes. Ten years after birth, highly educated mothers face a 10\% larger earnings penalty if their firstborn is a son, whereas less educated mothers experience slightly higher penalties with daughters. These differences stem from distinct labor market adjustments: less educated mothers are marginally more likely to exit employment after having a daughter, while highly educated mothers with daughters disproportionately move into public-sector jobs, which offer a relative wage premium. Our findings demonstrate that similar parental preferences can generate contrasting long-term earnings dynamics across education groups, highlighting the role of maternal preferences and labor market sorting in shaping the motherhood penalty. |
| Keywords: | parental preferences, gender wage gap, child penalty, occupational sorting |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J24 J42 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18140 |
| By: | Claudia Goldin |
| Abstract: | The fertility decline is everywhere in the world today. Moreover, the decline goes decades back in the histories of rich countries. Birthrates have been below replacement in the U.S. and Europe since the mid-1970s, although further declines occurred after the Great Recession. The reasons for the declines from the 1970s to the early 2000s involve greater female autonomy and a mismatch between the desires of men and women. Men benefit more from maintaining traditions; women benefit more from eschewing them. When the probability is low that men will abandon traditions, some career women will not have children and others will delay, often too long. The fertility histories of the U.S. and those of many European and Asian countries speak to the impact of the mismatch on birth rates. The experience of middle income and even poorer nations may also be due to related factors. Various constraints that I group under matching problems have caused fertility to be lower than otherwise and imply that fertility has a “downside.” |
| JEL: | J10 J16 N30 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34268 |
| By: | Cavit Baran; Janet Currie; Bahadir Dursun; Erdal Tekin |
| Abstract: | This paper provides the first nationwide evidence on how electric vehicle (EV) adoption has improved both air quality and child health. We assemble a rich dataset from 2010–2021 that links county-level EV registrations to measures of air pollution, birth outcomes, and emergency department visits. The endogeneity of EV adoption is addressed using two complementary strategies: Two-way fixed effects and instrumental variables (IV). The IV exploits the staggered rollout of Alternative Fuel Corridors as a source of exogenous variation in charging infrastructure that affected EV adoption. The estimates show that greater EV penetration significantly reduces nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a key pollutant linked to vehicular emissions. These improvements in air quality yield significant health benefits, including reductions in very low birth weight and very premature births, as well as fewer asthma-related emergency department visits among children ages 0 to 5. This is true even when potentially offsetting increases in pollution from the electricity generation needed to power EVs are accounted for. The benefits are higher in the high-pollution counties with Alternative Fuel Corridors, where baseline exposures are greatest. The resulting reductions in very low birth weight births alone could generate annual benefits of $1.2 to $4.0 billion. These findings underscore the dual environmental and public health benefits of EV adoption. |
| JEL: | I14 I18 Q53 R38 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34278 |