Inverse J effect of economic growth on fertility: a model of gender wages and maternal time substitution

Creina Day

CAMA Working Papers from Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University

Abstract: This paper presents a model where economic growth, via growth in female wages relative to male wages, encourages households to raise paid female labor supply and have more children by substituting child care for maternal time. A threshold logarithm per capita output, above which fertility decline reverses, depends on subsidized child care, maternity pay, and the value placed on children and maternal time spent rearing children. The predictions explain recent evidence and identify cross country differences in gender wages, family policy and willingness to substitute maternal time in child rearing as important factors in an inverse J-shaped effect of economic growth on fertility. The analysis is robust to the introduction of education and cost sharing among children in child rearing. Economies of scale in child rearing reduces the threshold logarithm of per capita output. Demand for child quality continues to rise with wages despite fertility decline reversal.

Keywords: Fertility; Economic development; J-shaped pattern (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2018-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cama.crawford.anu.edu.au/sites/default/fil ... 8-06/28_2018_day.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Inverse J Effect of Economic Growth on Fertility: A Model of Gender Wages and Maternal Time Substitution (2018)
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:een:camaaa:2018-28

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CAMA Working Papers from Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Cama Admin ().