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- Publisher Website: 10.1007/s00148-019-00747-4
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Article: Birth order and unwanted fertility
Title | Birth order and unwanted fertility |
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Authors | |
Keywords | Birth order Fertility intentions Unwanted births |
Issue Date | 2020 |
Citation | Journal of Population Economics, 2020, v. 33, n. 2, p. 413-440 How to Cite? |
Abstract | An extensive literature documents the effects of birth order on various individual outcomes, with later-born children faring worse than their siblings. However, the potential mechanisms behind these effects remain poorly understood. This paper leverages US data on pregnancy intention to study the role of unwanted fertility in the observed birth order patterns. We document that children higher in the birth order are much more likely to be unwanted, in the sense that they were conceived at a time when the family was not planning to have additional children. Being an unwanted child is associated with negative life cycle outcomes as it implies a disruption in parental plans for optimal human capital investment. We show that the increasing prevalence of unwantedness across birth order explains a substantial part of the documented birth order effects in education and employment. Consistent with this mechanism, we document no birth order effects in families who have more control over their own fertility. |
Persistent Identifier | http://hdl.handle.net/10722/346726 |
ISSN | 2023 Impact Factor: 3.3 2023 SCImago Journal Rankings: 2.688 |
DC Field | Value | Language |
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dc.contributor.author | Lin, Wanchuan | - |
dc.contributor.author | Pantano, Juan | - |
dc.contributor.author | Sun, Shuqiao | - |
dc.date.accessioned | 2024-09-17T04:12:53Z | - |
dc.date.available | 2024-09-17T04:12:53Z | - |
dc.date.issued | 2020 | - |
dc.identifier.citation | Journal of Population Economics, 2020, v. 33, n. 2, p. 413-440 | - |
dc.identifier.issn | 0933-1433 | - |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10722/346726 | - |
dc.description.abstract | An extensive literature documents the effects of birth order on various individual outcomes, with later-born children faring worse than their siblings. However, the potential mechanisms behind these effects remain poorly understood. This paper leverages US data on pregnancy intention to study the role of unwanted fertility in the observed birth order patterns. We document that children higher in the birth order are much more likely to be unwanted, in the sense that they were conceived at a time when the family was not planning to have additional children. Being an unwanted child is associated with negative life cycle outcomes as it implies a disruption in parental plans for optimal human capital investment. We show that the increasing prevalence of unwantedness across birth order explains a substantial part of the documented birth order effects in education and employment. Consistent with this mechanism, we document no birth order effects in families who have more control over their own fertility. | - |
dc.language | eng | - |
dc.relation.ispartof | Journal of Population Economics | - |
dc.subject | Birth order | - |
dc.subject | Fertility intentions | - |
dc.subject | Unwanted births | - |
dc.title | Birth order and unwanted fertility | - |
dc.type | Article | - |
dc.description.nature | link_to_subscribed_fulltext | - |
dc.identifier.doi | 10.1007/s00148-019-00747-4 | - |
dc.identifier.scopus | eid_2-s2.0-85071299002 | - |
dc.identifier.volume | 33 | - |
dc.identifier.issue | 2 | - |
dc.identifier.spage | 413 | - |
dc.identifier.epage | 440 | - |
dc.identifier.eissn | 1432-1475 | - |