We use longitudinal data describing couples in Australia from 2001-12 and Germany from 2002-12 to examine how demographic events affect perceived time and financial stress. Consistent with the view of measures of stress as proxies for the Lagrangean multipliers in models of household production,...

Studies of inequality often ignore resource allocation within the household. In doing so they miss an important element of the distribution of welfare that can vary dramatically depending on overall environmental and economic factors. Thus, measures of inequality that ignore intra household...

What determines bargaining power in marriage? This paper argues that wage rates, not earnings, determine well-being at the threat point and, hence, determine bargaining power. Observed earnings at the bargaining equilibrium may differ from earnings at the threat point because hours allocated to...

It takes a woman and a man to make a baby. This fact suggests that for a birth to take place, the parents should first agree on wanting a child. Using newly available data on fertility preferences and outcomes, we show that indeed, babies are likely to arrive only if both parents desire one. In...

We study differences in the time parents spend with girls and boys at preschool ages in Canada, the U.K. and the U.S. We refine previous evidence that fathers commit more time to boys, showing this greater commitment emerges with age and is not present for very young children. We next examine...

Sex ratios at birth in South Korea reached 116.5 boys per 100 girls in 1990, but have since declined. In 2007, sex ratios were almost normal, a development heralded as a sign that son preference and sex choice have vanished. However, normal sex ratios imply neither. We show that over the last 60...