Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
高技能女性生育率的变化：考虑子女生育偏好的异质性
Changes in the Fertility of Highly Skilled Women: Accounting for Heterogeneity in Preferences for Children
摘要
Over the past four decades, the negative relationship between income and fertility in the United States has flattened. We document two additional patterns: fertility variation within income groups has increased, and the average preference for children among high income women has risen. We propose a novel channel through which heterogeneity in fertility preferences interacts with changes in the wage and price structures to reshape the income–fertility relationship as documented. To assess its quantitative importance, we develop an overlapping generations model with heterogeneity in productivity and fertility preferences, alongside existing mechanisms from the literature. The model reproduces the joint evolution of fertility rates, fertility variation, and fertility preferences, and shows that the proposed mechanism is important for changes in fertility behavior across the income distribution.
中文摘要
过去四十年间，美国收入与生育率之间的负相关关系已趋于平缓。我们记录了两个额外现象：收入群体内部的生育率差异有所增加，以及高收入女性对子女的平均偏好上升。我们提出一个新渠道，通过该渠道，生育偏好的异质性与工资及价格结构的变化相互作用，重塑了所记录的“收入-生育”关系。为评估其量化重要性，我们构建了一个包含生产率和生育偏好异质性，并融合文献中现有机制的世代交叠模型。该模型再现了生育率、生育率差异及生育偏好的联合演变，并表明所提出的机制对于收入分布上生育行为的变化具有重要意义。