We investigate women's fertility, labor and marriage market responses to large declines in child and maternal mortality that occurred following a major medical innovation in the US. In response to the decline in child mortality, women delayed childbearing and had fewer children overall. Fewer...

We investigate women's fertility, labor, and marriage market responses to large declines in child mortality in the U.S. Fertility declined on the intensive margin as expected. However, despite the increasing value of having at least one child, a larger share of women remained childless. We...

Occupational licensing is intended to protect consumers. Whether it does so is an important, but unanswered, question. Exploiting variation across states and municipalities in the timing and details of midwifery laws introduced during the period 1900-1940, and using a rich data set that we...

Problem: Maternal and neonatal mortality remains high in low- and middle-income countries, with poor quality of intrapartum care as a barrier to further progress. Approach: We developed and tested a method of measuring the quality of maternal and neonatal care that could be embedded in a larger...

In 2010, the G8 placed renewed focus on maternal health via the Muskoka Initiative by committing to spend an additional US$5 billion on maternal, newborn, and child health before 2015. Following the end of the Millennium Development Goals and the advent of the Sustainable Development Goals,...

We investigate universalization of access to health in Brazil. We find large reductions in maternal, foetal, neonatal and post-neonatal mortality, a reduction in fertility and, possibly on account of selection, no change in the quality of births. Using rich administrative data, we investigate...

Raising women's political participation leads to faster maternal mortality decline. We estimate that the introduction of quotas for women in parliament results in a 9-12 per cent decline in maternal mortality. In terms of mechanisms, it also leads to an 8-11 per cent increase in skilled birth...