This paper examines the relationship between parenthood and life satisfaction using longitudinal data on women from the German Socio-Economic Panel. Previous studies have focused on satisfaction differences between parents and comparable childless adults, mostly finding small and often negative...

The gap between youth aspirations and the reality of the labour markets in Africa is large. Career aspirations of young Africans have little in common with current and projected labour demand in the region, making it unlikely that they will go through a smooth school to work transition. Evidence...

Il existe en Afrique un réel décalage entre les aspirations des jeunes et la réalité des marchés du travail. Les aspirations professionnelles des jeunes Africains ont ainsi peu en commun avec la demande de main-d’œuvre actuelle et prévue dans la région, ce qui rend peu probable une...

China’s population is set to age fast, owing to low fertility and rising life expectancy. With ongoing migration of the younger cohorts to urban areas the increase in the old-age dependency ratio will be even more pronounced in rural than in urban areas. Very different pension arrangements...

Since 1950 the sources of the gains from marriage have changed radically. As the educational attainment of women overtook and surpassed that of men and the ratio of men's to women's wage rates fell, traditional patterns of gender specialization in work weakened. The primary source of the gains...

Dramatic fertility swings over the last 100 years have been the subject of large literatures in demography and economics. Recent research has claimed that the post-1960 fertility decline is exceptional enough to constitute a "Second Demographic Transition." The empirical case for a Second...

A recent wave of economic research has studied the transformation of China from a poor country in the 1970s to a middle-income economy today. Based on this literature, we discuss the factors driving China’s development process. We provide a historical account of China’s rise, fall, and...

Ever since the very beginning of the Journal of Economics and Statistics population economics has featured prominently in the Journal. Fertility naturally plays an important role in population economics. However, the level of German fertility has decreased significantly from the 1900s. The paper...

This paper analyzes the long-term economic determinants of the demographic transition using a large panel of countries since 1870. A simple theoretical framework accounts for the possibly nonmonotonic variations of fertility in the course of economic development. As predicted by unified growth...

During the 19th century, the US birthrate fell by half. While previous economic literature has emphasized demand-side explanations for this decline--that rising land prices and literacy caused a decrease in demand for children--historians and others have emphasized changes in the supply of...