Norwegian registry data is used to investigate the location decisions of a full population cohort of young adults as they complete their education, establish separate households and form their own families. We find that the labor market opportunities and family ties of both partners affect these...

More than 80% of Italian men aged 18-30 live with their parents. We argue that one contributing factor to this remarkably high rate of cohabitation is parents’ tastes for co-residence. In order to investigate the role of parental preferences, we estimate the effect of exogenous changes in...

Data were extracted from the 1911 Irish manuscript census to study the regional variation in the extent and character of family limitation strategies in Ireland a century ago. Regression analysis of the data shows evidence of `spacing' in both urban and rural Ireland. Further analysis of the...

This Paper argues that the evolution of male preferences contributed to the dramatic increase in the proportion of working and educated women in the population over time. Male preferences evolved because some men experienced a different family model – one in which their mother was skilled...

Pooling microdata from five Australian censuses, I explore the relationship between child gender and divorce. By contrast with the United States, I find no evidence that the gender of the first child has a significant impact on the decision to marry or divorce. However, among two-child families,...

Societies are characterized by customs governing the allocation of non-market goods such as marital partnerships. We explore how such customs affect the educational investment decisions of young singles and the subsequent joint labour supply decisions of partnered couples. We consider two...