|
on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Jesús Fernández-Villaverde (University of Pennsylvania, NBER, and CEPR); Patrick Norrick (Northwestern University) |
| 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: | 2026–10–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pen:papers:26-016 |
| By: | Katherine Eriksson; Peter Zhixian Lin; Gregory Niemesh |
| Abstract: | In the late nineteenth century, Americans feared that crowded immigrant neighborhoods were spreading disease through industrial cities. We study this claim using newly constructed town-level panel data from Massachusetts, 1860 to 1915, a setting uniquely suited to this exercise because its early vital registration system allows consistent measurement of mortality before national registration became widespread. Using a shift-share instrumental variable strategy based on historical settlement patterns, we estimate the effect of local exposure to immigration on mortality. The relevant question is not whether immigrant families themselves experienced higher mortality, but whether immigration altered the local disease environment more broadly. We find that increases in the foreign-born share significantly raised infant and child mortality, with the infant effect falling disproportionately on the post-neonatal period. Mechanical changes in the composition of births by parent nativity account for only a portion of the estimated effect, implying that the results are not driven primarily by higher mortality among immigrant births. Instead, the evidence is consistent with increased exposure to immigrants, communicable disease, and spillovers to children of native-born parents. These findings highlight immigration as one factor shaping the mortality transition in crowded high-mortality environments. |
| JEL: | I10 J13 N31 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35743 |
| By: | Beata Osiewalska (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences, Interdisciplinary Centre for Labour Market and Family Dynamics (LabFam)); Anna Matysiak (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences, Interdisciplinary Centre for Labour Market and Family Dynamics (LabFam); Cracow University of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This study examines the role of working from home (WFH) in shaping fertility across Austria, France, and Poland. While WFH can enhance flexibility and facilitate work–family reconciliation, it may also blur boundaries and intensify work demands, with ambiguous implications for childbearing. Using longitudinal Labour Force Survey (2006–2023), we estimate hazard models of first and subsequent births, distinguishing women’s and men’s on-site work, occasional and usual WFH, self-employment, and non-employment, as well as their couple-level configurations. The association between WFH and fertility is strongly context-, gender-, and parity-specific. For first births, women’s WFH is positively associated with entry into parenthood in France and Austria, but negatively in Poland, particularly when combined with temporary employment. For subsequent births, women’s WFH is linked to higher birth risks in France and Austria, whereas in Poland, this pattern appears only when she works from home and he works on-site. Men’s WFH shows little association with fertility. These findings highlight that WFH operates as both a resource and a strain: supportive policies and secure employment can turn WFH into a facilitator of family formation, whereas their absence may transform it into a source of constraint and inequality. |
| Keywords: | work from home, flexible work, fertility, couples, Europe |
| JEL: | J13 J81 J16 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2026-35 |
| By: | Aboulhosn, Aya; Aksoy, Cevat Giray; Özcan, Berkay |
| Abstract: | Research and policy debates on population ageing typically assume that immigration matters only through immigrants’ own fertility and its impact on total population size, ignoring effects on natives’ fertility. We study this margin in the context of the large inflow of Syrian refugees into Türkiye after 2011. Using an instrumental-variables strategy, we provide evidence that greater local exposure to refugees increases native fertility. Drawing on complete birth histories from the Demographic and Health Surveys, we find that the response operates primarily through earlier entry into motherhood and is concentrated among younger women. The result holds across three independent datasets, including administrative birth registers, and is mirrored in women’s stated ideal number of children. Examining potential mechanisms, we find the evidence most consistent with improved household economic security and find no support for channels operating through housing costs or the use of paid childcare. |
| Keywords: | forced migration;fertiliy;refugees;social interactions |
| JEL: | J13 R23 F22 |
| Date: | 2027–01–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:140520 |
| By: | David Card; Jesse Rothstein; Moises Yi |
| Abstract: | We use data on 44, 000 twin pairs observed as adolescents in the 2000 Census, linked to their earnings 20 years later, to study the heritability of labor market outcomes. We extend the Classical Twins Design (CTD), which identifies heritability from contrasts between monozygotic and dizygotic twins, to settings where an analyst does not observe zygosity but can measure outcomes for same-sex and opposite-sex twins. We also allow for the presence of a family- and sex-specific component affecting same-sex siblings but only partly shared by opposite-sex siblings. Our extended model identifies heritability from the difference-in-differences of same-sex vs. opposite-sex twins vs. siblings. The estimates indicate strong heritability (h² approximately 0.36) of log earnings. Using an AKM (Abowd et al., 1999) decomposition that separates the person-specific component of earnings from employer-specific pay premiums, we find that both components are heritable. The heritability of employer pay premiums, however, is mainly driven by same-sex twins who work at the same firm, suggesting that social interactions may lead to an over-estimate of the genetic component in earnings. Excluding siblings who work together leads to estimates of the heritability of log earnings that are 15% lower. Similar biases may be present in CTD-based estimates of heritability for other social outcomes like education. |
| JEL: | C31 D31 J24 J31 J62 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35746 |
| By: | Gertsberg, Marina (University of Melbourne); Yimfor, Emmanuel (Columbia University) |
| Abstract: | Professionals invest heavily in gaining brief access to gatekeepers, yet we know little about whether such encounters affect career outcomes. We ask whether an editor's seminar visit raises junior scholars' chances of publishing in that editor's journal. We link seminar visits at top-100 U.S. finance departments to junior faculty publication histories and editorial rosters of leading economics and finance journals. Because departments select whom to invite and editors choose where to visit, we exploit seminar rotation norms: departments typically wait several years before re-inviting a speaker, generating predictable variation in the timing of editor visits. Effects are close to zero at two-, three-, and four-year horizons. We rule out increases of 50 percent or more relative to baseline at every horizon, and of 30 percent or more after three and four years. Point estimates are more positive for women, scholars at lower-ranked schools, editors who visit fewer schools, and pairs with greater research overlap, suggesting information or access benefits. We find no persistent gains outside the editor's journal. A single editor visit yields no large average publication gain, though smaller gains where access is scarce remain possible. |
| Keywords: | professional networks, academic publishing, editorial favoritism, personal connections, causal inference |
| JEL: | A11 A14 D83 L82 I23 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18922 |
| By: | Saroja Adhikari (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Srinivas Goli; Samir KC; Diego Alburez-Gutierrez (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany) |
| Abstract: | India’s ageing population relies heavily on kin, but conventional ageing measures do not capture older adults’ kin networks. We use demographic kinship models to estimate biological and selected affinal kin for a woman aged 65 in 17 Indian states covering 92% of the population, for rural and urban areas, from 1950 to 2100. We find between- and within-state inequalities in kin networks, similar to cross-country differences in South Asia. Kin networks become smaller and older, and working-age kin per older person (support ratio) declines faster than total kin. States reach low kin support ratios decades apart. The support ratio in urban Kerala is expected to fall below one by 2035, but Madhya Pradesh does not reach this level until 2050. Urban Madhya Pradesh is expected to have about 22 kin per woman in 2080, similar to urban Kerala in 2026. However, Madhya Pradesh is projected to have a support ratio of 0.64 in 2080, compared with 1.21 in Kerala in 2020. A male-biased sex ratio at birth associated with son preference has created a deficit in working-age daughters, reaching 10% in Punjab and Haryana around 2040 despite an assumed SRB of 1.05 after 2026. Yet having more sons than daughters does not translate proportionately into more daughters-in-law, traditionally expected to provide care. Our data show 0.6-0.7 daughters-in-law per son in urban Punjab and Kerala. These changes reshape the demographic basis of family support and highlight the need to strengthen formal care systems and redistribute support equitably across kin and genders. |
| Keywords: | India, ageing, kinship, projections |
| JEL: | J1 Z0 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2026-040 |