Should I Go to Graduate School? The Role of Preference for Children and Human Capital Accumulation
研究子女偏好如何影响女性读研决策，发现只有子女偏好低于一定阈值的女性才会选择读研，并利用动态生命周期模型解释了1945年和1965年出生女性行为变化的量化原因。
We propose a selection mechanism with preference heterogeneity to study the impact of children on women’s decision to attend graduate school. We show that the net return to education decreases with women’s preferences for children and that only women with preferences below a certain threshold find it optimal to go to graduate school. We embed the selection mechanism into a dynamic life-cycle model of schooling, fertility, and labor force participation decisions and find that changes in returns to experience are quantitatively relevant to account for the observed changes in behavior of women born in 1945 or 1965.