In this study, we employ pooled data from four rounds of Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS) to examine whether, and to what extent, does the incidence of early marriage shape the married women's perspectives on gender preference associated with reproduction. We employ a number of...

Does national team performance boost birth rates? We compiled a unique dataset combining country-level monthly birth rates for 50 European countries, along 56 years, with measures of national teams' performance in 27 international football events. We find that an increase in national teams'...

I first document that the introduction of the One Child Policy dramatically increased sex selection in certain regions, and that the Chinese government responded to this by allowing parents who had a daughter as their first child to try for a second child. Next, I show that the increase in...

Using data from the China Family Panel Studies, this paper exploits the Compulsory Education Law of China implemented in the 1980s to empirically examine the causal impact of women's education on fertility in rural China by difference-in-differences methods. The results show that an additional...

This paper describes the very different role played by female elites in contemporary developing countries, as compared to the 'early' industrializing countries of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. It shows that women are far more important in business and politics in today's developing...

This project aims to explore the effect of wealth shocks on education and marriage for young women in Pakistan. Financial shocks are used to estimate the probability of dropping out of education and into marriage. Using the Pakistan Rural Household Panel survey for the years 2000-10, the effects...

Using data from two representative Demographic and Health Surveys, we examine the change in son preference over the past three decades and its effects on Pakistani women's fertility. We analyse a number of indicators and employ different empirical methods to come up with strong and persistent...

The growth of self-employment and in particular gig work may explain part of the declining fertility rates observed in many countries. This study examines this question drawing on longitudinal data to compare women’s fertility, proxied by maternity leave uptake, when self-employed or wage...

An aspect of the Covid-19 pandemic that merits attention is its effects on marriage and childbirth. Although the direct fertility effects of peo- ple getting the virus may be minor, the impact of delayed marriages due to the first preventive lockdown, such as that imposed in Pakistan from March...

This study explores the effects of imbalances in the sex ratio, and their impact on intra-household bargaining, on both the quantity and the quality of children. We first present the theoretical model of intra-household bargaining in the presence of conflicting family goals within a couple, and...