increase in fertility rates, particularly for second births among married and older women, providing suggestive evidence of an … increase in completed fertility. Second, we find an increase in overall female employment, likely due to the desire to qualify …

Fertility decisions are often made by partners who may disagree. We develop a model in which an initial gender gap in … ideal fertility prevents effective communication between spouses about the costs of childbearing incurred by women. This … mechanism is likely to further widen the spousal disagreement over fertility in environments where maternal health risk is high …