An Empirical Analysis of Life Cycle Fertility and Female Labor Supply
利用美国收入动态面板数据，研究生命周期中生育与女性劳动供给的关系，发现育儿成本变化影响生育间隔，且家庭层面的联合建模有重要价值。
This paper examines US household fertility and female labor supply over the life cycle using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. The authors investigate how maternal time inputs and market expenditures on offspring as well as the benefits they yield their parents vary with ages of offspring and influence female labor supply and contraceptive behavior. The econometric framework combines a female labor supply model and a contraceptive choice index function. It also accounts for the fact that conceptions are not perfectly controllable events. Using longitudinal data on married couples the authors estimate these equations and test alternative specifications of the technologies governing child care. The findings suggest that while parents cannot perfectly control conceptions variations in child care costs do affect life cycle spacing of births. Furthermore the results demonstrate the gains of modeling the linkages between female labor supply and fertility behavior at the household level. (authors modified)