This paper explores gendered patterns of time use as an explanatory factor behind fertility trends in the developed … decades of unprecedented fertility decline in the industrialized world, only a handful of countries in the West exhibit … replacement fertility rates – around two children per woman. Paradoxically, birth rates are substantially lower in countries in …

The fertility rates in high-income countries have been lower than the replacement level for decades. We argue that the … rising parental time plays an essential role in this fertility rate decline. To this end, we construct an indicator named the … increase in the parental time share depresses the fertility rate and pulls up human capital investment. The quantitative …

Population policies are defined here as voluntary programs which help people control their fertility and expect to … improve their lives. There are few studies of the long-run effects of policy-induced changes in fertility on the welfare of … contraception or age-specific fertility. The dearth of long-run family planning experiments has led economists to consider …