Fertility rates have declined dramatically across almost all highincome countries over the past decades. This has raised concerns about future economic prospects. Indeed, fully- and semi-endogenous growth models imply that a shrinking workforce would lead to declining income growth and perhaps...

This paper exploits an education policy in India generated by a 2010 schooling reform to examine the effect of education on women's family planning decisions. The key element of the reform was that it required students to complete eight years of primary education (age 6-14 years). I employ an...

This study employs a cluster randomized controlled trial and administrative health center data to investigate the effects of authorizing community health workers to deliver a new generation of contraceptive injections directly to women during routine home visits following comprehensive training....

Synthetic fertilizers are essential to sustaining the world's population, but their production is responsible for 1.8-2.4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Clean hydrogen holds growing potential (amid falling costs) to decarbonize fertilizer production. Hydrogen produces synthetic...

Calvert et al. (2023) meta-analyzed effect estimates from interrupted time series (ITS) analyses of changes in preterm birth- and stillbirth rates following the first four months lockdown in various countries. Evidence for small relative reductions was reported regarding preterm birth rates in...

Debates about immigration's role in addressing population aging typically concentrate on immigrant fertility rates. Moreover, standard projections account for migration's impact on overall population growth while largely overlooking how immigration might affect native fertility. In contrast, we...

We propose a unified economic model of sexual exchanges that treats both unpaid and paid sex as outcomes of individual time allocation decisions. Departing from existing literature that separates sex into marital relations or specialized markets, the model incorporates relational skills, gender...

We develop a rational choice model of sexual exchange that unifies marriage and paid sex, explaining two key facts: the gendered segregation of sex markets and the decline in sexual activity and fertility. Individuals choose whether to engage in paid or unpaid sex based on income, human capital,...

Two mechanisms have been proposed to explain sex selection in India: son preference in which parents desire a male heir and daughter aversion in which dowry payments make parents worse off with girls. Our model incorporates both mechanisms, providing micro-foundations, based on the organization...

This paper proposes an indicator of contraceptive concordance that identifies the alignment between stated preferences for contraception and concurrent contraceptive behavior. The proposed indicator departs from traditional approaches to measurement in family planning that infer concordance from...

Son preference, or desire by parents for male offspring, is a common gender bias that obstructs policy efforts towards the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals on gender equality. The gendered nature of well-being calls for a multidimensional approach. Popular measures are often...

We study the impacts of childbirth on maternal mental health, the role of pro-natalist cash transfers, and the fertility consequences of maternal mental health. Using claims-level data from South Korea's universal healthcare system, we find that mental health diagnoses rise by 34.8% (198.7%)...

This paper investigates the causal impact of free primary education (FPE) on fertility decisions among parents in sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on the interplay between the policy, intra-household bargaining, and cultural norms. Using Demographic and Health Survey data and exploiting the...

The EU population is set to decline due to lasting low levels of fertility in the near future. Without migration from third Countries, the EU population would have started to decline already about a decade ago. However, the demographic landscape across Member States is complex: migration is...

Demographic research has repeatedly demonstrated differences in fertility on the subnational level, especially between urban and rural regions. The most recent literature focuses on historical developments of total fertility, cohort fertility, or indicators of late fertility (35+). The present...

We show that the widespread approach to estimate the career costs of motherhood - so- called "child penalties" - is prone to produce biased results, as it pools first-time mothers of all ages without accounting for their differences in characteristics and outcomes. We propose a novel method...

What sparked humanity's leap from stagnation to prosperity? What lies at the core of inequality among nations? Unified Growth Theory explores the evolution of societies over the entire course of human history. It uncovers the universal wheels of change that have governed the journey of humanity,...

India consistently ranks among the countries with the highest levels of ambient air pollution worldwide. At the same time, it faces significant challenges in neonatal health, with newborns having low average birth weights and a high incidence of being born within the low birth weight (LBW) and...

Today's parents prioritize their children's future opportunities and well-being over the costs and benefits of child-rearing. Inequality of opportunity (IO) worsens children's developmental prospects and reduces fertility intentions. Using nationally representative data from China, we show that...

Wie sich die Platzbedarfe in Kitas und Schulen entwickeln, hängt vorwiegend von der demografischen Ausgangslage in den Regionen ab. Diese wird wiederum maßgeblich vom Verlauf der Geburtenzahlen bestimmt. Hier unterscheiden sich die ehemaligen beiden deutschen Staaten auch mehr als drei...

We estimate the future demand for public school classrooms using new school children population projections for 82 provinces and 33 urbanized cities of the Philippines up to 2060. A return to replacement-level fertility from the current 1.9 total fertility rate (TFR) is expected to ease demand...

The total fertility rate-the average number of births per woman-in Europe is already at 1.46, which is significantly below the replacement rate of 2.1, where fertility compensates for mortality and thereby the population replaces itself from one generation to the next. Falling fertility rates...

This paper proposes an indicator of contraceptive concordance that identifies the alignment between stated preferences for contraception and concurrent contraceptive behavior. The proposed indicator departs from traditional approaches to measurement in family planning that infer concordance from...