Some consequences of childbearing are partly expected by the parents, while others clearly are difficult or impossible to foresee. In this paper, the different types of consequences, for parents or siblings, are briefly reviewed. It is then argued that if an effect of childbearing to a large...

There is considerable uncertainty about how reproductive factors affect child mortality. Joint determinants are difficult to control adequately for, and the studies that have dealt with selection in the most advanced ways have given diverging results. According to very simple models estimated...

There have been many studies of how the number of children in a family affects the parents' or the children's lives. One strand of this research focuses on the implications of fertility for the parents' level of self-reported well-being or happiness. It is argued in this paper that an overall...