This paper examines how the public policy environment in the United States affects work by new mothers following childbirth. We examine four types of policies that vary across states and affect the budget constraint in different ways. The policy environment has important effects, particularly...

This paper provides evidence on child penalties in female and male earnings in different countries. The estimates are based on event studies around the birth of the first child, using the specification proposed by Kleven et al. (2018). The analysis reveals some striking similarities in the...

We estimate the effect of Colorado's Family Planning Initiative, the largest program to have focused on long-acting-reversible contraceptives in the United States, which provided funds to Title X clinics so that they could make these contraceptives available to low-income women. We find...

The vast majority of China's fertility decline predates the famous One Child Policy - and instead occurred under its predecessor, the Later, Longer, Fewer (LLF) fertility control policy. In this paper, we first study LLF's contribution to marriage and fertility behavior, finding that the policy...

Although the gender wage gap in the U.S. has narrowed, women's career trajectories diverge from men's after the birth of children, suggesting a potential role for family-friendly policies. We provide new evidence on employer provision of these policies. Using the American Time Use Survey, we...

The past five decades have seen a remarkable convergence in the economic roles of men and women in society. Yet, persistently large gender gaps in terms of labor supply, earnings, and representation in top jobs remain. Moreover, in countries like the U.S., convergence in labor market outcomes...

Do family policies reduce gender inequality in the labor market? We contribute to this debate by investigating the joint impact of parental leave and child care, using administrative data covering the labor market and birth histories of Austrian workers over more than half a century. We start by...

The 1993 expansions of the Earned Income Tax Credit created the first meaningful separation in the benefit level for families based on the number of children, with families containing two or more children now receiving substantially more in benefits. If income is protective of health, we should...

One of the most commonly cited studies on the effect of child subsidies on fertility, Whittington, Alm and Peters (1990), claimed a large positive effect of child tax benefits on fertility using time series methods. We revisit this question in light of recent increases in child tax benefits by...

Many believe that increasing the quantity of children will lead to a decrease in their quality. This paper exploits plausibly exogenous changes in family size caused by relaxations in China's One Child Policy to estimate the causal effect of family size on school enrollment of the first child....