The worldwide problem with pay-as-you-go, defined-benefits social security systems is not just financial. Through a dynamic, overlapping-generations model where forming a family and bearing and educating children are choice variables, we show that social security taxes and benefits generate...

Data from a range of different environments indicate that the incidence of death is not randomly distributed across families but, rather, that there is a clustering of death amongst siblings. A natural explanation of this would be that there are (observed or unobserved) differences across...

In our contemporary legal landscape, a student of the law of the workplace has scarce opportunity to encounter an integrated body of scholarship which analyzes the labor market as the subject of government regulation, contractual duties, collective action, and individual rights. This essay,...

Using Brazilian household survey data, this paper aims to contribute for a better understanding of the income inequality evolution from 1981 to 2001. This is done by decomposing the time evolution of the income inequality among Brazilian households into age, time and cohort effects....

This paper examines the determinants of the marriage timing decisions of young men and women in China. We pay particular attention to distinguishing three explanations for marriage timing: the independence hypothesis, which emphasizes growing economic independence; the career cycle hypothesis,...

The marriage institution, which plays an important role in regulating sexual activity in most societies, traditionally placed few restrictions on male extra-marital relationships in sub-Saharan Africa. If this traditional pattern continues to remain in place today, then it may help explain the...

While formal insurance is widespread in much of the developed world, households in lower-income countries continue to rely heavily on informal risk-sharing networks when faced with unexpected shocks. Kin networks of non-coresident family members may play an important role by providing each other...

This article argues that a systematic integration of gender into labor economics courses based on standard textbooks is both beneficial and straightforward. An undergraduate course in labor economics presents an ideal opportunity to introduce students to the importance of gender differences in...

Sub-Saharan Africa’s fertility decline has progressed much slower than elsewhere. However, there is still substantial disagreement about why, partly because four leading potential causes—cultural norms, expected offspring mortality, land access, and school quality—are challenging to...