Impact of Family Size on Investment in Child Quality. Multiple Births as Natural Experiment. The Journal of Human Resources. Volume 41, Number 4 (Fall) 2006.
Using multiple births as an exogenous shift in family size I investigate the impact of number of children on child investment and child wellbeing. Using data from the 1980 US Census Five-Percent Public Use Micro Sample, 2SLS results show that parents facing a change in family size reallocate resources in a way consistent with Becker's Quantity & Quality model. A larger family generated by a twin on a later birth reduces the likelihood that older children attend private school, increases the likelihood that children share a bedroom, reduces mother's labor force participation, and increases the likelihood that parents divorce. The impact of family size on measures of child well being such as educational attainment, the probability of not dropping out of school and teen pregnancy is, however, less clear. The results do indicate that for either the measures of child investment or the measures of child well being, the 2SLS estimates are statistically distinguishable from OLS estimates, indicating an omitted variables bias in the single equation model.
Female Labor Force Participation and Obesity. (with Melinda Sandler Morril)
In this paper, we study the impact of female labor participation on the body weight of women and their husbands. We also examine direct inputs into body weight -- the level of physical activity and nutrient intake. An analysis of married men allows us to investigate the impact of female labor force participation on other members in the household, (e.g. children), avoiding a genetic explanation. Using the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) We find that female employment has a positive impact on Body Mass Index (BMI) for married men with less than a high school education. However We did not find an impact for all samples of women or men with high school or more. This finding is consistent with men facing an increase in the cost of home cooking with a positive impact on body weight. Women face an offsetting rise in the level of physical activity and households whose husbands have higher income can afford less calorie--intensive prepared food. The magnitude of these findings is larger than found elsewhere in the literature. This is primarily because we take account of the endogeneity of female labor force participation.
How Unilateral Divorce Affect Children. (with Eugenio Giolito)
Using U.S. Census data for the years 1960-1980, we study the impact of unilateral divorce on outcomes of children (age 6-15) and their mothers. We find that the reform increased mothers' divorce, decreased family income and increased the fraction of mothers below the poverty line. For children, we find not only negative results on investment, measured as the probability that a child goes to a private school, but also on child outcomes, measured by the likelihood of children aged 0-4 being held back in school at the time of the reform. We then analyze outcomes of the same cohorts of children 10 years later, by studying young men and women aged 16-25 using the 1970-1990 U.S. Census. We find an increase in marginality for these cohorts, measured as the probability of living in an institution (men) or the probability of being below the poverty line (women). We find that the impact in outcomes is particularly important for black children and young adults.
The Impact of Unilateral Divorce on Crime. (with Eugenio Giolito)
Using data from the FBI´s Uniform Crime Report program and differences in the timing in the introduction of the reform, we find that unilateral divorce has a positive impact on violent crime rates. Arrest data shows an average impact of 30% for murder and 39% for aggravated assault arrest rates over the period 1965-1997. Our results suggest that the impact comes principally from those who were children at the time of the reform. We confirm our findings using the age at the time of the reform as an additional source of variation and controlling for all confounding factors that may operate at the state-year, state-age or age-year level.
[Working Paper PDF]Keeping the Best for Last. Impact of Fertility on Mother’s Employment. Evidence from Developing Countries
By using the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data for 42 developing countries this paper studies the impact of fertility on mothers’ employment. In order to solve the problem of omitted variable bias multiple births are used as source of variation in family size. Similarly to previous evidence for developed countries, the findings reveal that family size has a negative impact on female employment. Nevertheless, two types of heterogeneity are exposed. First, the size and sign of the impact depends on the birth at which we study the increase in family size; specifically, a negative impact of fertility is observed at the time of the first birth or in a third and higher births; nevertheless, for some samples (and definitions of mother’s employment) a shift in a second birth might have a positive impact on employment. Second, the types of jobs affected by a change of fertility differ depending on at which margin the shift in fertility takes place. Thus, while for a first birth, more informal jobs, such as unpaid jobs, or jobs that are harder to combine with childbearing (working away from home or seasonal jobs) are the ones impacted by an increase in family size; at higher parities, all type of jobs are affected by the shift in fertility.
[Working Paper PDF]