Interrelations of Fertility and Women's Labor Force Participation, With Particular Emphasis on the Effects of Education. Discussion Papers #388-77 [electronic resource] / Barbara Wolfe.
The effect of more education for women on their fertility behavior is examined in this paper through the use of data from the National Bureau of Economic Research/Thorndike-Hagen sample (NBERTH) and a comparable group from the National Longitudinal Survey. The NBER-TH data are longitudinal 25-year h...
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| Format: | Electronic eBook |
| Language: | English |
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1977.
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| Summary: | The effect of more education for women on their fertility behavior is examined in this paper through the use of data from the National Bureau of Economic Research/Thorndike-Hagen sample (NBERTH) and a comparable group from the National Longitudinal Survey. The NBER-TH data are longitudinal 25-year histories of 5,083 white males and their families. The hypothesis that the effects of more education for women result in smaller families and greater labor force participation is examined. A utility maximization model is employed where education and labor force participation are viewed as affecting both costs and tastes. The effect of education on family size is analyzed in terms of several distinct factors: contraceptive efficiency, age at marriage, tastes toward children and desired standard of living, opportunity cost and efficiency in raising children. Findings indicate that a combination of the taste and efficiency factors has a positive, though nonlinear, relation to fertility. A cost factor has the expected negative relationship to family size. Since the cost factor has dominated other results, this raises the question of the true impact of increased women's wages on fertility. (Author/AM) |
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| Item Description: | ERIC Document Number: ED142600. |
| Physical Description: | 38 p. |