Marital Status and Fertility in the United States: Welfare and Labor Market Effects
利用1980年美国人口普查数据，分析各州福利计划（AFDC和Medicaid）及男女市场工资机会如何影响女性当前婚姻状况和生育子女数，发现福利水平降低结婚率，男性工资促进婚姻和生育，女性工资则相反。
The incidence of marriage and the proportion of childbearing that occurs within marriage has decreased sharply in the United States in the last several decades.This paper examines whether the probability that a woman is currently married and the number of children she has born, as reported in the 1980 U.S.Census, is related to two identifiable factors: the variation in welfare programs across states (specifically, AFDC and Medicaid benefits and AFDC-UP expenditures) or in market wage opportunities available to women and to their potential husbands.AFDC and Medicaid benefit levels are associated with fewer women being currently married.Medicaid benefits are related to lower fertility levels for both black and white women, whereas AFDC benefits in cash and food are associated with lower fertility among white women age 15 -24.Those states that extend AFDC benefits to families with Unemployed Parents (i.e.fathers in intact poor families) do not have significantly more women married or higher fertility rates, as might be expected from economic incentives.Men's market wages are associated with more frequent marriage and• higher fertility, whereas higher market wage opportunities for women have substantial effects in the opposite direction, all of which are consistent with standard models of gender specialization and the demand for marriage and fertility.