Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/228459 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Series/Report no.: 
GLO Discussion Paper No. 750
Publisher: 
Global Labor Organization (GLO), Essen
Abstract: 
This study explores the effects of imbalances in the sex ratio, and their impact on intra-household bargaining, on both the quantity and the quality of children. We first present the theoretical model of intra-household bargaining in the presence of con icting family goals within a couple, and show that male scarcity (a decrease in the male to female sex ratio) induces an increase in the number of children, but a decrease in the quality of children. Second, using the impact of World War II on the sex ratio, as a quasi-natural experiment, we establish empirically that the decrease in the male to female sex ratio in World War II contributed to a lower decline in fertility and child mortality rates in postwar Japan. In particular, the fertility rate would have fallen by an additional 12% and the child mortality rate by an additional 13% between 1948 and 1970, in the absence of the decrease in the sex ratio.
Subjects: 
quantity-quality trade-off of children
bargaining power
marriage mar- ket
sex ratio
JEL: 
J11
J12
J13
J16
N15
N35
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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