This dissertation analyzes the timing and spacing of child-births within an economic framework. I have attempted to explain when women in the United States begin child bearing - i.e., the "timing" (of the first birth) - and the length of the interval they spend in child bearing - i.e., the...

Of great importance to the future World economy is the future labor force of Asia, as Asia is by far the most populous region in the World. Expected future levels of education, very young and youth population, youth employment and unemployment, dependency rates, human capital per capita, and the...

We provide the first systematic account of summer declines in women's labor market activity. From May to July, the employment-to-population ratio among prime-age US women declines by 1.1 percentage points, whereas male employment rises; women's total hours worked fall by 9.8 percent, more than...

Employment and participation rates for US prime age women rose steadily during the second half of the 20th century. In the last 30 years, however, those rates stagnated, even as employment and participation rates for women in other industrialized countries continued to rise. I discuss the role...

Billions of women still face legal barriers to economic inclusion, yet it is unclear whether lifting these barriers is sufficient to enhance their economic participation. We conduct a field experiment to quantify the impact of a major legal reform - the lifting of the Saudi women's driving ban -...

How, when, and why did women in the US obtain legal rights equal to men's regarding the workplace, marriage, family, Social Security, criminal justice, credit markets, and other parts of the economy and society, decades after they gained the right to vote? The story begins with the civil rights...

This chapter reviews key literature studying the effects of wars on minority and underrepresented groups in U.S. labor markets in the 20th century. These labor markets, characterized by historically pervasive barriers to entry into certain occupations and industries, promotions, and fair pay for...

This paper examines the effect of a husband's job loss on the labor supply of his wife, an effect known as the 'added worker' effect. Unlike past added worker effect studies which focus on the effect of the husband's current unemployment status, this paper analyzes the wife's labor supply...

Of all of the welfare reforms that were implemented during the 1990's, time limits may represent the single greatest break from past policy. This paper expands on what is known about this important welfare reform measure by exploiting the predictions from Grogger and Michalopoulos (1999) to...

In western countries, accidents are the leading cause of death and injury among children, far surpassing diseases as a health threat. We examine the effect of maternal employment and child care policy on rates of accidental injury using both micro data from the National Longitudinal Survey of...