Booms, Busts, and Fertility: Testing the Becker Model Using Gender-specific Labor Demand*

In this paper, I present estimates of the effect of local labor markets on birth rates. To identify exogenous variation in male and female labor demand, I create indices that exploit cross-sectional variation in industry composition, changes in gender-composition within industries, and growth in national industry employment. Consistent with economic theory, I find that improvements in mens labor market conditions are associated with increases in fertility while improvements in womens labor market conditions have the opposite effect. I separately find that increases in unemployment rates are associated with small but significant decreases in birth rates at the state level. JEL: J10, J13, J16. *I would like to thank Ann Stevens, Hilary Hoynes, Doug Miller, Mark Hoekstra, Seth Sanders, and seminar participants at the University of California, Davis and the annual meetings of the Population Association of America for their helpful comments. I acknowledge financial support from the American Association of University Women American Dissertation Improvement Fellowship, the George and Dorothy Zolk Fellowship in Economics, and the UCD and Humanities Graduate Research Grant. ** Email: [email protected]. Mailing: McClelland Hall 401, 1130 E Helen St, Tucson, AZ, 85721-0108, USA.