The potential economic returns to the demographic transition are high. As countries move from a steady state with high mortality and high fertility to an equilibrium with low mortality and fewer children, lower dependency ratios, higher investment in human and physical capital as well as...

In 1994 the World Bank called East Asia's strong economic growth performance a "miracle". Trade openness, high savings rates, human capital accumulation, and macroeconomic policy only explained part of this growth performance; the remainder was left unexplained. Research in the ensuing years has...

The decline in the total fertility rate between 1960 and 2005, coupled with an increase in life expectancy and the dynamic evolution of past variation in birth and death rates, is producing a significant shift in age structure in Asia. The age distribution has shifted from one with a high...

The last 150 years have been a period of unusual demographic change. Baby booms occurred in the aftermath of wars in some countries. In others, baby booms occurred as a result of falling infant mortality rates and subsequent reductions in fertility. Baby boom generations produce an echo, in the...

We estimate the effect of fertility on female labor force participation in a cross-country panel data set using abortion legislation as an instrument for fertility. We find a large negative effect of the fertility rate on female labor force participation. The direct effect is concentrated among...

The world’s population is growing older, leading us into uncharted demographic waters. There will be higher absolute numbers of elderly people, a larger share of elderly, longer healthy life expectancies, and relatively fewer numbers of working-age people. There are alarmist views – both...

This paper investigates the effects of Spain's large recent immigration wave on the labor supply of highly skilled native women. We hypothesize that female immigration led to an increase in the supply of affordable household services, such as housekeeping and child or elderly care. As a result,...

The baby-boom and subsequent baby-bust have shaped much of the history of the second half of the 20th century; yet it is still largely unclear what caused them. This paper presents a new unified explanation of the fertility Boom-Bust that links the latter to the Great Depression and the...

The economic theory of fertility choice builds predominantly on the unitary model of the household, in which there is a single household utility function and potential intra-household disagreement is abstracted from. Empirical evidence suggests, however, that many (potential) mothers and fathers...

A shortage of skilled labor and low female labor market participation are problems many developed countries have to face. Besides activating inactive women, one possible solution is to support the re-integration of unemployed women. Due to female-specific labor market constraints (preferences...