We argue that one major cause of the U.S. postwar baby boom was the increased demand for female labour during World War II. We develop a quantitative dynamic general equilibrium model with endogenous fertility and female labour-force participation decisions. We use the model to assess the...

We present a model in which the gender gap in wages displays non-monotonic dynamics of the type observed in the US during the twentieth century. We show that the dynamics of the gender gap depend on the number of women that work at home in the early stage of their life and join the labor force...

I argue that distinguishing between life expectancy at birth and life expectancy beyond the crucial early childhood years affects the relationship between life expectancy and schooling in a meaningful way. In particular, I show that while the change in life expectancy at birth between 1960 and...

Conventional wisdom suggests that in developed countries income and fertility are negatively correlated. We present new evidence that between 2001 and 2009 the cross-sectional relationship between fertility and women's education in the U.S. is U-shaped. At the same time, average hours worked...

Prior to 1996, Israelis in collective communities (kibbutzim) shared the costs of raising children equally. This paper examines the impact of the privatization of kibbutzim on fertility behavior among members. We find that fertility declined by 6-15 percent following the shift to privatization....

This article challenges conventional wisdom by arguing that greater longevity cannot explain the significant accumulation of human capital during the transition from stagnation to growth. This is because greater longevity raises children’s future income proportionally at all levels of...

The Ben-Porath (1967) mechanism suggests that prolonging the period during which individuals may receive returns on their investment spurs investment in human capital and causes growth. An important, albeit implicit implication of this mechanism is that the total labour input over a lifetime...

This paper provides a new explanation for the narrowing and reversal of the gender education gap. It highlights the indirect effect of returns to human capital on parents' preferences for sons and the resulting demand for children and education. We assume that parents maximize the full income of...