Seminar in Macroeconomics - The Emergence of Procyclical Fertility: The Role of Breadwinner Women
Wann
Montag, 19. Juni 2023
12 bis 13:15 Uhr
Wo
F428
Veranstaltet von
Junior Professorship in Economics
Vortragende Person/Vortragende Personen:
Sena Coskun (IAB / FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg)
The Emergence of Procyclical Fertility: The Role of Breadwinner Women
with Husnu Dalgic
Abstract: Fertility in the US exhibits an increasingly more procyclical pattern. We argue that women’s breadwinner status is behind procyclical and lower fertility: (i) women’s relative income in the family has increased over time; and (ii) women are more likely to work in relatively stable and countercyclical industries whereas men tend to work in volatile and procyclical industries.This creates a countercyclical gender income gap as women become breadwinners in recessions, producing an insurance effect of women’s income. Our quantitative framework shows that rising breadwinner status of women can explain both the emergence of procyclical fertility and the decline in fertility rate in the second half of the 20th century.