A negative relationship between income and fertility has persisted for so long that its existence is often taken for granted. One economic theory builds on this relationship and argues that rising inequality leads to greater differential fertility between rich and poor. We show that the...

How does women's empowerment affect fertility and children’s education? In a dramatic revolution, U.S. states gave economic rights to married women between 1850-1920. Prior to this "women's liberation," married women were subject to the laws of coverture, which granted the husband virtually...

Baudin et al. (2015) document that childlessness rates in the U.S. in 1990 exhibit a U-shaped relationship with women’s education, with highly educated women much more likely to be childless than other women. We show that this is no longer true: the highly educated women’s childlessness rate...