 The power of time: The impact of free IVF on Women’s human capital investmentsNaomi Gershoni and Corinne Low European Economic Review, 2021, vol. 133, issue C Abstract: Women’s time-limited fertility window, compared to men’s longer period of fecundity, could be a key constraint in shaping the gender gap in career choices and hence outcomes. Israel’s 1994 policy change that made in-vitro fertilization free provides a natural experiment for examining how fertility time horizons impact women’s investment choices. We find that following the policy change women complete more college and graduate education. We then present evidence suggesting that these larger investments contributed to better labor market outcomes, reducing the gender gap in career achievement. This further implies that persistent labor market inequality may be partly rooted in biological asymmetries. Keywords: Gender gap; Human capital; Fecundity; Career choice; Assisted reproductive technology (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:133:y:2021:i:c:s0014292120302750 DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2020.103645 Access Statistics for this article European Economic Review is currently edited by T.S. Eicher, A. Imrohoroglu, E. Leeper, J. Oechssler and M. Pesendorfer More articles in European Economic Review from Elsevier |
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