We develop a new directed-search model of fertility and marriage, and apply it to two empirical problems: the rise in … unmarried women’s share of births since 1970, and the fact that black women have lower marriage rates and higher rates of … unmarried births than white women. The premise is that weaker marriage-market prospects may be strong enough to explain higher …

By reducing the risk of unwanted parenthood, more effective contraception reduces the cost of sex outside of marriage …, increasing the value of single life. Could this explain why marriage and birth rates declined in the U.S. after 1970?. We …, modeling the shotgun-marriage, contraception- method and abortion margins. We use US survey data on contraception, sexual …

. We find that transitions in and out of employment for men are relatively independent of other transitions. In contrast …

, (ii) an increase in the rate of divorce, and (iii) a decline in the rate of marriage. What can explain this? It is argued … marriage and divorce is developed. Household production benefits from labour-saving technological progress. …

Why do some men father children outside of marriage but not provide support? Why are some single women willing to have … children outside of marriage when they receive little or no support from unmarried fathers? Why is this behavior especially … common among blacks? To shed light on these questions, we develop and estimate a dynamic equilibrium model of marriage …

find that the higher probability of divorce and the changes in wage structure faced by the 1955 cohort are each able to … to change asymmetrically for women versus men. …

, childcare use, and divorce rates. Women’s responses, however, were highly heterogeneous, depending on their partners’ labour … supply and earnings. Mothers married to low-income men showed larger responses in employment, especially if they had younger … to receive the tax credit, they also experienced a greater risk of divorce. We find virtually no effect for women with …