Historical evidence on a modern theory of out-of-wedlock childbearing

Kelly S. Ragan

Economics Letters, 2019, vol. 175, issue C, 24-27

Abstract: According to Willis (1999), when women outnumber men in a marriage market, out-of-wedlock births increase as women’s incomes rise in real terms and relative to men’s. These predictions are born out in 19th century Swedish data; exogenous shocks that raised women’s real and relative earnings increased the share of births to single mothers. The results are consistent with theory and quantitatively significant; increases in women’s real and relative wages in the unskilled agricultural sector explain sixty-four percent of the increase in births outside of wedlock in Sweden from 1865–1910.

Keywords: Out-of-wedlock childbearing; Marriage markets; Sweden (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:175:y:2019:i:c:p:24-27

DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2018.11.020

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