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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Jesús Fernández-Villaverde; Patrick Norrick |
| Abstract: | As of 2026, humanity is likely below replacement fertility. That has never happened before, not in wars or pandemics. But the real surprise is that the fall has been concentrated in low- and middle-income countries and among poorer and less educated women. We fit a single-factor model to 236 countries since 1950: the common component peaked in 1978, and what drives fertility down today are country-specific trends, 219 of them negative and not one leveling off. None of the commonly cited mechanisms can account for this pattern, so we offer a conjecture: modernity itself, which makes a third child expensive and childlessness cheap. Children come in integers, so it takes very little to move a cohort’s fertility rate from 1.8 to 1.3. And nothing in an economy pushes fertility back to 2.1. We close with the main economic consequences, in particular slow growth. |
| Keywords: | fertility decline, demographic transition, population aging, economic growth, labor force, population projections |
| JEL: | J11 J13 O40 E24 O11 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12997 |
| By: | Dora L. Costa; Matthew E. Kahn |
| Abstract: | We show how fertility delays compound across generations to raise age at first grandmotherhood. Under the 1960 first-birth schedule median grandmotherhood came at 44. Under the 2024 schedule it is 57, cutting the healthy years with grandchildren from 28 to 15. Longer life does not make up the loss of years when the grandmother is healthy enough to supply money and care. Delay is most pronounced among the college-educated, with reproductive-control access accounting for over half the fall in grandmotherhood by age 55 among White college graduates. When a daughter times her first birth to maximize her own payoff, the loss her choice imposes on her mother is external to her calculation. We call this the Rotten Adult Kid Problem. Delay raises both the price of a grandmother's care and wealth per grandchild. |
| JEL: | D13 J13 J14 N32 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35773 |
| By: | Williams, Iván; Alburez-Gutierrez, Diego |
| Abstract: | Understanding the population-level distribution of parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents is increasingly important as fertility declines and kin networks thin. However, standard kinship demography tools do not easily capture these distributions when vertical kin are shared across individuals. We introduce a simple approximation to estimate age-specific proportions of women who are childless, mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers from period fertility and mortality schedules. The approach relies on conditional first-order fertility hazards combined with standard age-specific fertility and survival rates, assuming a time-invariant regime and an age-specific distribution of parity. We illustrate the method using Argentine census data and vital statistics, and assess its performance by comparison with a demographic microsimulation. Results show pronounced declines over time in the prevalence of higher-order generational roles, alongside strong subnational heterogeneity. These findings demonstrate how declining fertility reshapes vertical kin availability and provide a tractable tool for studying kinlessness and intergenerational support in population ageing contexts. A key Further development can formally account for heterogeneity across multiple dimensions. |
| Date: | 2026–08–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:j36st_v1 |
| By: | Beata Osiewalska (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences, Interdisciplinary Centre for Labour Market and Family Dynamics (LabFam); Cracow University of Economics); Karel Neels (University of Antwerp); Anna Matysiak (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences, Interdisciplinary Centre for Labour Market and Family Dynamics (LabFam)) |
| Abstract: | The expansion of working from home (WFH) has transformed paid work, but access to remote-workable jobs remains strongly stratified by education. We examine how regional WFH availability is associated with fertility among women with different educational levels in Belgium. We link Belgian population register data (2001–2019) with regional WFH indicators from the Labour Force Survey and estimate discrete-time birth hazards, followed by microsimulation of aggregate fertility patterns. Higher WFH availability is associated with lower first-birth risks at younger ages across educational groups, with later recuperation only among highly educated women. For second and higher-order births, WFH availability is generally associated with higher birth risks, especially among the highly educated. Microsimulation shows that these parity-specific associations produce only modest changes in total fertility and the educational gradient. WFH therefore appears less as a universal reconciliation resource than as a stratified labour-market change with parity-specific fertility implications. |
| Keywords: | working from home, remote work, fertility, educational gradient, parity progression microsimulation, register data, Belgium |
| JEL: | J13 J11 J22 J24 O33 R23 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2026-38 |
| By: | Williams, Iván; Alburez-Gutierrez, Diego |
| Abstract: | BACKGROUND Kin deaths are universal, but their frequency, timing, and position within family networks vary across demographic regimes. Existing demographic research describes kin loss, but provides limited tools for summarizing its cumulative and life-course consequences. OBJECTIVE We develop a demographic framework to compare bereavement regimes across populations, focusing on three dimensions: cumulative burden, loss of shared lifetime, and generational overlap in kin deaths. METHODS We derive three indicators from age-specific kinship dynamics: bereavement burden, defined from kin-years lived after kin death; shared time lost, measured as expected kin-years of potential coexistence removed by death; and generational overlap, measuring coincidence between age-specific death schedules of different kin types. We apply the framework to female 1950 cohorts in Argentina and Guatemala using UN-2024 data and matrix kinship models. RESULTS The comparison identifies contrasting bereavement regimes. Guatemala has much higher burdens from child and sibling deaths and larger total losses of shared time with these kin. Argentina has a higher grandparent burden and greater shared time lost per child death. Death schedules are also more strongly overlapped in Guatemala, particularly for siblings and parents and for children and parents, whereas Argentina displays a more sequential ordering of losses across generations. CONCLUSIONS Similar death counts can conceal markedly different bereavement experiences. The demographic meaning of loss depends on when deaths occur, how many kin are exposed, and how losses are sequenced across generations. CONTRIBUTION We extend formal kinship demography by providing three interpretable indicators that allow bereavement to be compared systematically across demographic regimes using standard population data. |
| Date: | 2026–08–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:bmndx_v1 |
| By: | Tanaka, Mari (University of Tokyo); Okudaira, Hiroko (Doshisha University); Sakka, Mariko (University of Tsukuba); Yamaguchi, Shintaro (University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | We test whether employers can shift household allocation by targeting men as fathers. Among 1, 225 male employees in four Japanese organizations, we randomized a two-hour work-life balance training and an information treatment correcting misperceptions of colleagues' support. Training increased fathers' weekend childcare by about one hour per day in young-child households and raised spouses' reported paid work; spouses' housework also fell. Training strengthened beliefs that paternity leave benefits workplace functioning but not leave intentions. Information modestly shifted perceived support but affected neither intentions nor information-seeking. Employer training can affect household allocation without changing formal rights or work arrangements. |
| Keywords: | workplace intervention, paternity leave, household time allocation, second-order beliefs, field experiment |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J22 M54 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18913 |