The emergence of procyclical fertility: The role of breadwinner women

Sena Coskun and Husnu Dalgic

Journal of Monetary Economics, 2024, vol. 142, issue C

Abstract: Fertility in the US exhibits an increasingly more procyclical pattern. We argue that women’s breadwinner status is behind procyclical and lower fertility: (i) women’s relative income in the family has increased over time; and (ii) women are more likely to work in relatively stable and countercyclical industries whereas men tend to work in volatile and procyclical industries. This creates a countercyclical gender income gap as women become breadwinners in recessions, producing an insurance effect of women’s income. Our quantitative framework shows that rising breadwinner status of women can explain both the emergence of procyclical fertility and the decline in fertility rate in the second half of the 20th century.

Keywords: Fertility; Procyclical fertility; Industry cyclicality; Gender gap; Quality-quantity trade-off (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 E32 J11 J13 J16 J21 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304393223001198
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: The Emergence of Procyclical Fertility: The Role of Breadwinner Women (2022)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:moneco:v:142:y:2024:i:c:s0304393223001198

DOI: 10.1016/j.jmoneco.2023.10.004

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Monetary Economics is currently edited by R. G. King and C. I. Plosser

More articles in Journal of Monetary Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().