Changes in the fertility of highly skilled women: Accounting for heterogeneity in preferences for children
中文摘要
过去四十年间, 美国收入与生育率之间的负相关关系已趋于平缓。我们记录了另外两个模式: 收入组内部的生育率差异有所扩大, 高收入女性对子女的平均偏好有所上升。我们提出了一个新的渠道, 通过该渠道, 生育偏好的异质性与工资结构和价格结构的变化相互作用, 从而重塑了上述收入—生育率关系。为评估其定量重要性, 我们构建了一个在生产率和生育偏好方面具有异质性的世代交叠模型, 并同时纳入文献中已有的机制。该模型再现了生育率、生育率差异与生育偏好的联合演变, 并表明所提出的机制对整个收入分布上生育行为的变化具有重要作用。
Abstract
Over the past four decades, the negative relationship between income and fertility in the United States has flattened. We document two additional patterns: fertility variation within income groups has increased, and the average preference for children among high income women has risen. We propose a novel channel through which heterogeneity in fertility preferences interacts with changes in the wage and price structures to reshape the income-fertility relationship as documented. To assess its quantitative importance, we develop an overlapping generations model with heterogeneity in productivity and fertility preferences, alongside existing mechanisms from the literature. The model reproduces the joint evolution of fertility rates, fertility variation, and fertility preferences, and shows that the proposed mechanism is important for changes in fertility behavior across the income distribution.