Fertility outcomes and parental well-being in later life: Evidence from India

Bilal Ahmad Bhat, Esha Chatterjee and Sounak Thakur

Journal of Development Economics, 2025, vol. 177, issue C

Abstract: We study the effect of fertility outcomes on parental well-being in post-reproductive ages. The context is India, where the gender of the firstborn is plausibly random, and parents with firstborn daughters end up having more daughters. For both women and men, we find that having a firstborn daughter leads to lower subjective life satisfaction and an increase in labor supply in their post-reproductive years. We present suggestive evidence that these results are plausibly driven by greater financial stress associated with marrying off daughters, and, for women, by the long-term effects of abortion and lower autonomy in households with firstborn daughters.

Keywords: Older adults; Post-reproductive; Son preference; Life satisfaction; Fertility; Gender (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I19 I31 J13 J14 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:deveco:v:177:y:2025:i:c:s0304387825000860

DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2025.103535

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