Fertility Shocks and Equilibrium Marriage-Rate Dynamics: Lessons from World War 1 in France
نویسندگان
چکیده
Low sex ratios are often equated with unfavorable marriage prospects for women, but in France after World War 1, the marriage probability of single females rose 50%, despite a massive drop in the male/female ratio. We conjecture that the war-time birth-rate bust induced an abnormal postwar abundance of singles with relatively high marriage propensities. We compute the equilibrium response, in a life-cycle matching model, of marriage hazards to war-time fertility and male-mortality shocks. Our results implicate two powerful forces: an abnormal abundance of marriageable men, and increased gains from marriage due to post-war pro-natalism.
منابع مشابه
Fertility and Wars: The Case of World War I in France∗
During World War I (1914–1918) the birth rates of countries such as France, Germany, the U.K., Belgium and Italy fell by almost 50%. In France, where the population was 40 millions in 1914, the deficit of births is estimated at 1.4 million over 4 years while military losses are estimated at 1.4 million too. Thus, the fertility decline doubled the demographic impact of the war. Why did fertility...
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