Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/185176 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 11716
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We investigate women's fertility, labor and marriage market responses to large declines in child and maternal mortality that occurred following a major medical innovation in the US. In response to the decline in child mortality, women delayed childbearing and had fewer children overall. Fewer women had three or more children, and a larger share remained childless. We present a new theory of the extensive margin response, premised upon improvements in child survival reducing the time women need to achieve their target number of children. This prompts fertility delay and labor market entry which, coupled with wage or fecundity shocks, can result in childlessness. Consistent with these predictions, we find that reductions in child mortality increased women's labor force participation, improved their occupational status and reduced their chances of ever having married. Maternal mortality decline had opposing effects on all of these outcomes.
Subjects: 
women's labor force participation
fertility timing
childlessness
child mortality
maternal mortality
medical innovation
JEL: 
J13
I18
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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