Did Organized Labor Induce Labor? Unionization and the American Baby Boom

Henry Downes

No kfcvs_v1, SocArXiv from Center for Open Science

Abstract: Labor unions have many well-documented effects on economic outcomes that are plausibly related to family formation. I study the impact of unionization on fertility using evidence from the largest expansion of unionism in American history: the enactment of the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). I introduce new estimates of local union membership and exploit variation in exposure to the NLRA shock to estimate the place level effect of union growth on fertility outcomes. Unionization has positive effects on birth rates and completed fertility, and can account for approximately 20% of overall fertility increases during the Baby Boom. Effects are driven primarily by wage growth, protection against adverse labor market shocks, and impacts on female labor force participation.

Date: 2025-02-15
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:socarx:kfcvs_v1

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/kfcvs_v1

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