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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | de Vries, Sander; Ketel, Nadine; Lindeboom, Maarten |
| Abstract: | There is a clear consensus that childhood experiences shape adult success, yet there is limited understanding of their impact on future generations. We proxy parental investments during childhood with birth order and study whether disadvantages due to lower investments are transmitted to future generations. Birth order effects on the first generation are large, apply to 80% of the population, and can be identified with relatively mild assumptions. Using cousin comparisons in Dutch administrative data, we find that around 20 percent of the income disadvantages are transmitted. Additionally, we find sizeable decreases in children’s education and increases in boys’ criminal behavior. |
| Keywords: | Intergenerational mobility; Birth order; Extended families; Education; Crime |
| JEL: | D19 I24 J13 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19648 |
| By: | Flynn, James (Miami University); Stevenson, Amanda (University of Colorado Boulder); Yeatman, Sara (University of Colorado Denver); Genadek, Katie (United States Census Bureau); Menken, Jane (University of Colorado Boulder); Mollborn, Stefanie (Stockholm University); Root, Leslie (University of Colorado Boulder) |
| Abstract: | We use birth records from the National Vital Statistics System to document the full age and parity fertility effects of the Colorado Family Planning Initiative (CFPI). Prior work has demonstrated effects on fertility at ages 15-29. We estimate the fertility effect of the CFPI for all age groups (15-44) and for first and non-first births using the synthetic control method. We find large and significant reductions in birth rates for 15-24-year-olds that line up with other studies, but we find important heterogeneity across parity. For teenagers, we find reductions in first birth rates of 9%, but larger reductions in non-first birth rates of 17-25%. We also find reductions in overall fertility for 20-24 and 25-29-year-olds, but these are entirely driven by reductions of 5-9% in non-first births. For 30-39-year-olds, we find small but significant reductions in fertility of 3-7% across parity levels, and we find a 6% reduction in fertility for 40-44-year-olds. We also conduct inference using synthetic difference-in-differences (SDID) and placebo-based methods. When we do this, our estimates are similar, though confidence intervals are wider, with specifications on older age groups no longer significant. |
| Keywords: | family planning, long-acting reversible contraception (LARC), fertility |
| JEL: | J13 I18 I12 J16 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18852 |
| By: | Fernández-Kranz, Daniel (IE University); Fontenay, Sébastien (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) |
| Abstract: | Joint custody reforms are among the most consequential family-law changes for children, yet little is known about their long-term effects. Exploiting staggered adoption across US states and 13 million ACS observations, we show that childhood exposure reduces adult fertility by 7 percent, symmetrically for women and men and operates primarily through lower parenthood and couple formation. Effects are sub-additive within couples, while exposed individuals assortatively match. Our findings point to the formation of family preferences during childhood and align with a US fertility decline increasingly driven by rising childlessness and declining couple formation rather than smaller families among parents. |
| Keywords: | fertility, joint custody, family law, household behavior, intergenerational transmission |
| JEL: | J12 J13 J16 D13 K36 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18831 |
| By: | Ursula Berresheim; Marina Hoch |
| Abstract: | The United States faces record-low fertility rates amid persistently high housing costs and a con strained housing supply. One factor may be the limited downsizing of empty-nesters and retirees, which concentrates housing among elderly cohorts and restricts access for young families during their prime childbearing years. This paper investigates the link between low fertility and the high elderly housing concentration. In the U.S. context, we document a strong association between low fertility and both high elderly housing concentration and low housing supply elasticity. To quantify the underlying mechanisms, we develop a general equilibrium overlapping generations model with endogenous fertility and housing. In the model, two channels dominate: liquidity constraints among young households, which prevent them from accessing housing large enough to comfortably raise children, and habit formation amongoldercohorts, whichdiscouragesdownsizingandfosterselderly housing concentration. We conduct counterfactual policy analysis aimed at raising fertility through a reduced elderly housing concentration. An increase in property taxation reduces elderly housing concentration, but depresses fertility and welfare. Liquidity-focused interventions are more effective: a targeted transfer to young parents simultaneously raises fertility, reduces concentration, and gener ates large welfare gains. Yet, the cohort-specific welfare decomposition shows that these gains come partly at the expense of older cohorts. |
| Keywords: | Fertility, Housing Markets, Housing Wealth Concentration, Demographic Change, Housing Affordability, Taxation |
| JEL: | J13 R31 E21 R21 J11 R38 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2025_771 |
| By: | Van Doornik, Bernardus; Fazio, Dimas; Ramadorai, Tarun; Skrastiņš, JÄ nis |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the impact of access to housing on fertility rates using random variation from housing credit lotteries in Brazil. We find that obtaining housing increases the average probability of having a child by 3.8% and the number of children by 3.2%. For 20 to 25-year-olds, the corresponding effects are 32% and 33%, with no increase in fertility for people above age 40. The lifetime fertility increase for a 20-year old is twice as large from obtaining housing immediately relative to obtaining it at age 30. The increase in fertility is stronger for households in areas with lower quality housing, greater rental expenses relative to income, and those with lower household income and lower female income share. These results suggest that alleviating housing credit and physical space constraints can significantly increase fertility. |
| JEL: | D14 G23 J62 R20 R23 |
| Date: | 2024–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19805 |
| By: | Lagakos, David; Michalopoulos, Stelios; Voth, Hans-Joachim |
| Abstract: | What does it take to live a meaningful life? We exploit a unique corpus of over 1, 400 life narratives of older Americans collected by a team of writers during the 1930s. We combine detailed human readings with large language models (LLMs) to extract systematic information on critical junctures, sources of meaning, and overall life satisfaction. Under specific conditions, LLMs can provide responses to complex questions that are indistinguishable from those of human readers, effectively passing a version of the Turing Test. We find that sources of life meaning are more varied than previous research suggested, underlining the importance of work and community contributions in addition to family and close relationships (emphasized by earlier work). The narratives also highlight gendered disparities, with women disproportionately citing adverse family events, such as the loss of a parent, underscoring their role as keepers of the kin. Our research expands our understanding of human flourishing during a transformative period in American history and establishes a robust and scalable framework for exploring subjective well-being across diverse historical and cultural contexts. |
| Keywords: | Text analysis; Narratives; Life satisfaction |
| JEL: | I00 I31 N32 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19885 |
| By: | Fernández-Kranz, Daniel (IE University); Trinh, Trong-Anh (Monash University) |
| Abstract: | India reached below-replacement fertility (TFR = 2.0) despite low income, persistent traditional gender norms, and declining female labour force participation. We study how the expansion of a decentralized, fee-based education market reshaped fertility decisions by increasing households’ exposure to the cost of child quality. Because sons are more likely than daughters to be enrolled in private schools, this cost channel interacts with son preference to generate gender-differentiated fertility stopping behavior. We test predicitons from a dynamic model of parity progression using survey data from NFHS (2015–21) merged with administrative district-level UDISE data on 37, 251 women in 525 districts at the parity-2-to-3 margin. We find that households with only daughters are less responsive to local private-school prevalence than otherwise similar households with sons. This result is stable across subsamples, the exclusion of recent migrants, controls for modernization proxies, and controls for differential baseline-fertility trends. At the district level, private-school expansion is associated with lower parity progression, but this effect is sensitive to district-level confounding. |
| Keywords: | fertility, private schooling, household decision-making, developing economies |
| JEL: | J13 I25 O15 D13 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18771 |
| By: | David Card; Ciprian Domnisoru; Seth Sanders; Lowell Taylor; Victoria Udalova |
| Abstract: | We document an enduring influence of female primary school teachers on their female students in rural America circa 1940. Using historical US Census data linked to IRS records, later censuses, and death records, we find that exposure to female teachers significantly improved girls’ educational attainment—particularly among those with poorly-educated parents and in areas with limited labor market opportunities for women. These educational gains translated into delayed marriage and childbearing, marriage matches to better-educated husbands and higher household income. We also find that exposure to female teachers increased longevity of women relative to men. |
| Keywords: | Female Teachers; Education and Gender Equality; Education and Mortality |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:26-39 |
| By: | Hill, Andrew (Montana State University); Regmi, Krishna (Florida Gulf Coast University); Swensen, Isaac (Montana State University) |
| Abstract: | Unprecedented increases in unemployment insurance (UI) claims and dramatic changes in UI delivery across the U.S. in recent years stress the importance of understanding the wide-ranging effects of UI receipt. We estimate the short-run effect of UI on suicide and drug overdose mortality following mass layoff events. Using quarterly county-level data from 1995-2010 and leveraging interactions between state-specific UI generosity and mass layoff events, our two-way fixed effects models and event studies show that more generous UI reduces suicide at the county level. These mitigation effects coincide with otherwise large spikes in mortality following mass layoff events in local communities. We find no effect on drug overdose deaths. |
| Keywords: | unemployment insurance, job loss, mortality, suicide, drug abuse |
| JEL: | J65 H53 I38 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18776 |
| By: | Calvo, Richard; Pons, Vincent; Shapiro, Jesse |
| Abstract: | Many influential observers have forecast large partisan shifts in the US electorate based on demographic trends. Such forecasts are appealing because demographic trends are often predictable even over long horizons. We backtest demographic forecasts using data on US elections since 1952. We envision a forecaster who fits a model using data from a given election and uses that model, in tandem with a projection of demographic trends, to predict future elections. Even a forecaster with perfect knowledge of future demographic trends would have performed poorly over this period—worse even than one who simply guesses that each election will have a 50-50 partisan split. Enriching the set of demographics available does not change this conclusion. Slow demographic change, unstable group preferences, and strategic party responses all help to explain why demography has not been destiny in US politics. |
| JEL: | D72 J11 C53 P00 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19564 |