While fertility is positively correlated across generations, the causal effect of children's experience with larger sibships on their own fertility in adulthood is poorly understood. Using the sex composition of the two first-born children as an instrumental variable, we estimate the effect of...

The interpretation of instrumental variables (IV) estimates as local average treatment effects (LATE) of instrument-induced shifts in treatment raises concerns about their external validity and policy relevance. We examine how to move beyond LATE in situations where the instrument is discrete,...

Fertility contagion through social networks increasingly attracts the interest of demographers. While these theories propose a causal mechanism, they are rarely put to test in a plausibly causal statistical design. This study applies quasi-experimental techniques to distinguish network effects...

This paper presents novel methodological and empirical contributions to the child penalty literature. We propose a new estimator that combines elements from standard event study and instrumental variable estimators and demonstrate their relatedness. Our analysis shows that all three approaches...

A methodology to describe the distributional and behavioural effects of child care subsidies is presented within a micro simulation framework. We discuss the effects of changing the governmental policy to support families with preschool children, from today's subsidisation of spaces at child...

This paper analyzes the (re)entry of Norwegian mothers into full-time and part-time employment following the first and second birth. Based on theories of job search and human capital depreciation and appreciation a semi-parametric hazard model is estimated, expressing the entry rate as a...

This paper compares the employment patterns of women after first and second birth in Finland, Norway and Sweden during 1972-92, focusing on the impact of parental leave and childcare programs on the transitions to full-time and part-time work. The results unanimously point to the great...

In this paper we use a parental leave reform directed towards fathers to identify the causal effects of paternity leave on children's and parents' outcomes. We document that paternity leave causes fathers to become more important for children's cognitive skills. School performance at age 16...

Considering the high female part-time rates in Norway, one may envisage a sizeable additional labour supply if more part-time working women would switch to full time. In view of an ageing population and increased demand for labour in the future, we investigate this issue by studying married and...

The number of housewives has declined significantly in most Western countries, but there is now a renewed interest in the homemaker role in the media and public discourse. Utilising representative survey data from 2007 we examine the prevalence and characteristics of the housewife role in...