Culture: An Empirical Investigation of Beliefs, Work, and Fertility
通过研究美国第二代女性的工作和生育行为，用祖籍国的历史劳动参与率和生育率作为文化代理变量，发现文化信念对行为有显著解释力，即使控制教育和配偶特征后依然成立。
We study culture by examining the work and fertility behavior of second-generation American women. Culture is proxied with past female labor force participation and total fertility rates from the woman's country of ancestry. The values of these variables capture not only economic and institutional conditions but also the country's preferences and beliefs regarding women's roles. Since the women live in the United States, only the belief and preference components are potentially relevant. We show that the cultural proxies have positive significant explanatory power even after controlling for education and spousal characteristics, and we demonstrate that the results are unlikely to be explained by unobserved human capital.