The Baby Boom and World War II: A Macroeconomic Analysis

Matthias Doepke, Moshe Hazan and Yishay Maoz

The Review of Economic Studies, 2015, vol. 82, issue 3, 1031-1073

Abstract: We argue that one major cause of the U.S. post-war baby boom was the rise in female labour supply during World War II. We develop a quantitative dynamic general equilibrium model with endogenous fertility and female labour force participation decisions. We use the model to assess the impact of the war on female labour supply and fertility in the decades following the war. For the war generation of women, the high demand for female labour brought about by mobilization leads to an increase in labour supply that persists after the war. As a result, younger women who reach adulthood in the 1950s face increased labour market competition, which impels them to exit the labour market and start having children earlier. The effect is amplified by the rise in taxes necessary to pay down wartime government debt. In our calibrated model, the war generates a substantial baby boom followed by a baby bust.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (103)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/restud/rdv010 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: The Baby Boom and WorldWar II: A Macroeconomic Analysis (2013)
Working Paper: The Baby Boom and World War II: A Macroeconomic Analysis (2008)
Working Paper: The Baby Boom and World War II: A Macroeconomic Analysis (2008)
Working Paper: The Baby Boom and World War II: A Macroeconomic Analysis (2008)
Working Paper: The Baby Boom and World War II: A Macroeconomic Analysis (2007)
Working Paper: The Baby Boom and World War II: A Macroeconomic Analysis (2007)
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:oup:restud:v:82:y:2015:i:3:p:1031-1073.

Access Statistics for this article

The Review of Economic Studies is currently edited by Thomas Chaney, Xavier d’Haultfoeuille, Andrea Galeotti, Bård Harstad, Nir Jaimovich, Katrine Loken, Elias Papaioannou, Vincent Sterk and Noam Yuchtman

More articles in The Review of Economic Studies from Review of Economic Studies Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().