This paper assesses the relationship between cash transfers to families and subsequent childbearing. We take advantage of a cash-for-care (CFC) policy introduced in Norway in 1998, and compare the fertility behaviour of eligible and ineligible mothers over a four year period. Contrary to...

Poor health may constrain women's capacity for active leisure, including family life and childrearing, for participation in the labor market and potentially affect preferences. Still, health remains remarkably understudied as a fertility determinant. We explore the association between health and...

This paper describes the results of a systematic review of the literature of policy effects on fertility after 1970 in Europe, USA, Canada and Australia. Empirical studies were selected through extensive systematic searches, with subsequent literature list screening. Inclusion was conditional on...

Numerous studies have shown that fertility behavior is spatially clustered. In addition to pure context effects, two causal mechanisms could drive this pattern. First, neighbors may influence each other's fertility behavior, and second, household fertility intentions and behavior may influence...

The replacement of custodial with non-custodial sanctions holds the potential to reduce recidivism as well as other costs associated with imprisonment. However, the causal impacts on recidivism of noncustodial sanctions in general, and electronic monitoring (EM) programs in particular, remain...

Two districts of Oslo started to offer five-year-old children free preschool four hours a day. We analyze the effect of this intervention on the school performance of the children from immigrant families 10 years later (age 16). Our difference-in-difference approach takes advantage of the...

Theory and evidence points towards particularly positive effects of high-quality child care for disadvantaged children. At the same time, disadvantaged families often sort out of existing programs. To counter differences in learning outcomes between children from different socioeconomic...

Proficiency in the language spoken by the majority population may be crucial for the cognitive development of children from immigrant families. High-quality child care is believed to promote such language skills, and it is thus of concern that children from immigrant families are...

Young children are thought to be vulnerable to separation from the primary caregiver/s. This raises concern about whether early child care enrollment may harm children's development. We use child care assignment lotteries to estimate the effect of child care starting age on early cognitive...

We estimate effects of child care center staff composition on early child development. During the years our data covers, child care centers in Oslo were oversubscribed, and child care slots were allocated through a lottery. This allow us to explore how staff education, experience and stability,...