American Economic Review Vol. 88 No. 3 1998
Children and Their Parents' Labor Supply: Evidence from Exogenous Variation in Family Size
Abstract
Research on the labor-supply consequences of childbearing is complicated by the endogeneity of fertility. This study uses parental preferences for a mixed sibling-sex composition to construct instrumental variables (IV) estimates of the effect of childbearing on labor supply. IV estimates for women are significant but smaller than ordinary least-squares estimates. The IV are also smaller for more educated women and show no impact of family size on husbands' labor supply. A comparison of estimates using sibling-sex composition and twins instruments implies that the impact of a third child disappears when the child reaches age 13.
- Volume
- 88
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 450-477
- Sources
- bibtex:phds-export.bib