Development Policies when Accounting for the Extensive Margin of Fertility

Beyond natural sterility, there are two main types of childlessness: one driven by poverty and another by the high opportunity cost to child-rearing. We argue that taking childlessness and its causes into account matters for assessing the impact of development policies on fertility. We measure the importance of the components of childlessness with a structural model of fertility and marriage. Deep parameters are identified using census data from 36 developing countries. On average, one more year of education decreases poverty-driven childlessness by 0.75 percentage points, but increases opportunity-cost-driven childlessness by 0.57 percentage points from the 9th year of schooling onwards. Neglecting the endogenous response of marriage and childlessness leads to overestimating the effectiveness of family planning policies, except where highly educated mothers are also heavily affected by unwanted births, and to underestimating the effect of promoting gender equality on fertility, except in countries where poverty-driven childlessness is high

Lupus en Argentina. Pacientes no respondedores al tratamiento estándar y belimumab como posible opción. Datos del registro RELESSAR

Introducción: el lupus es una enfermedad compleja y varias veces de difícil abordaje. Alcanzar la remisión es uno de los objetivos, incorporando opciones terapéuticas. Objetivos: describir las características generales de los pacientes según el estado de la enfermedad y el uso de belimumab. Materiales y métodos: estudio de corte transversal, registro RELESSAR. Se definió el estado de la enfermedad como: remisión: SLEDAI=0 y sin corticoides; baja actividad de la enfermedad: SLEDAI >0 y ≤4 y sin corticoides; control no óptimo: SLEDAI >4 y cualquier dosis de corticoides. Resultados: se incluyeron 1.277 pacientes, 23,4% en remisión, 12,6% en baja actividad y 63,8% con control no óptimo. En este último grupo eran más jóvenes y con menor duración de la enfermedad; presentaban mayores índices de actividad y cronicidad, y mayor empleo de inmunosupresores. Solo el 22,3% de los pacientes con criterio potencial de uso de belimumab (lupus eritematoso sistémico activo a pesar del tratamiento estándar) lo recibía en ese momento. Las variables asociadas a hospitalizaciones fueron: terapia con corticoides, ciclofosfamida y mayor SLICC. Conclusiones: se refleja la complejidad del manejo de estos pacientes y se visualizan aspectos estructurales como la desigualdad. El uso del belimumab resultaría beneficioso en los pacientes seleccionados

A Model of Voluntary Childlessness

Demographers and sociologists have studied why women remain childless for more than two decades; however, this specific choice of zero fertility has not interested economists. Permanent childlessness, in developed countries, can concern up to 30 % of the women in a cohort. Childlessness rates can be positively related to average fertility for some cohorts of women. This paper provides an explanation for this using an endogenous fertility model where individuals have different preferences for children. The main mechanism considered goes through the intergenerational evolution of preferences: I show that a reduction in the gender wage gap, or an increase in the fixed cost of becoming a parent, has a negative effect on both fertility and childlessness. The reduction of childlessness is due to a composition effect: small families shrink more than larger families, and this reduces childlessness

Parenthood decisions and the transformation of the family structure

The study of demographic subjects among economists has flourished after the work of the Nobel Prize winner Gary Becker. This thesis contributes to this literature by looking at aspects of parenthood decisions that have already been studied by demographers and sociologists but much less by economists. The first two chapters study childlessness and its determinants. The last chapter studies how childcare is related to the education of parents. The first chapter is the first study in the economic literature on fertility to consider childlessness on its own. I show that childlessness is not a mere extension of a fertility decision problem. Over the long run, completed fertility and childlessness can have a positive relationship for some cohorts of women. This chapter provides an explanation for this counterintuitive fact using an endogenous fertility model where individuals have different preferences for children. The main mechanism considered goes through the inter-generational evolution of preferences. I show that a reduction in the gender wage gap, or an increase in the fixed cost of becoming a parent, have a negative effect on both fertility and childlessness. As the wage gap closes, fertility decreases because women earn more and this increases their opportunity cost of childrearing time. An increase in the cost of parenthood decreases fertility due to an income effect. As for childlessness, its reduction is due to a composition effect: the decrease in fertility makes small families to shrink more than larger families and this reduces childlessness because children from smaller families have a larger probability to be childless. This study does not consider either involuntary childlessness nor the effect of marriage on both types of childlessness. My second chapter includes these two important issues. In "DINKs, DEWKs and Co., Marriage, Fertility and Childlessness in the United States", co-authored with Thomas Baudin and my thesis supervisor, David de la Croix, we show how family patterns have been shaped by the rise in education and wage inequality, and by the shrinking gender wage gap in the United States. In particular, we explain that the U-shaped relationship between childlessness and education, reflects a predominance of women remaining childless for sub-fecundity reasons among the uneducated and, among the highly educated, a prevailing number of women remaining childless because the opportunity cost of motherhood in terms of foregone income is too high. Our theoretical framework allows quantifying the importance of voluntary and involuntary childlessness. Using the model to understand the changes that occurred over the period 1960-1990 we have learned that an increase in the education of men leads to a decrease in both involuntary and voluntary childlessness and an increase in the marriage rate of educated people. We have also shown that closing the gender wage gap is a powerful tool for limiting the proportion of involuntary childlessness. We also explore how marriage affects childlessness decisions. For uneducated women, marriage is a way to pool income and insure against involuntary childlessness. For highly educated women, husbands provide part of the childrearing duties, diminishing the opportunity cost of motherhood. The last chapter of my thesis builds on the idea that sharing childcare duties between partners provides an incentive to be married. This chapter compares the respective merits of two theoretical frameworks in explaining households' choices on childcare: a collective decision process and a semi-cooperative one. In particular, the facts to be explained are: (i) that the amount of time spent providing childcare increases with the education of both members of a couple, and (ii) that the gap between childcare provided by women relative to that provided by men decreases as both members of a couple are more educated. The collective framework used is benchmark in this literature (see the several works by Chiappori and his co-authors). The semi-cooperative decision process assumes that households make decisions in two steps. First, they cooperatively choose the amount of labor supplied by each member and then each partner chooses childcare individually. This timing relies on the assumption that partners can commit on what their labor supply will be (as members have to sign contracts at the beginning of adult life) but cannot commit on how much childrearing time each of them will provide. The collective approach does not allow to replicate the fact that the amount of childcare provided by the husband increases with the education of its female partner. The reason is that, with the existence of a wage gap between genders, efficiency implies that the woman will be more likely to specialize in childcare and, if her education is larger than that of her partner, she will both work and provide childcare. The semi-cooperative setup allows for a good matching with the data. The assumption about the timing of the choices implies that households have to make predictions about future decisions on childcare. This generates indeterminacy about the final equilibrium. To choose among the possible equilibria, I compare three selection criteria, the first selects the equilibrium that brings the highest utility to the husband, the second is the symmetric case for the wife, and the third chooses the final equilibrium in a random way, where each possible outcome has a probability to appear equal to the inverse of the number of possibilities. The random choice selection criteria is the one that provides the best fit with the data. The reason is that, among the possible equilibria, are situations where both partners work but only one specializes on the educational part of childcare provided to children. In this case, childcare increases with both partners education because the increase in one's education increases the opportunity cost of not providing childcare (the production of child quality positively depends on the education of parents) and also increases with the education of the partner as a highly educated partner decreases the amount of work done by the one supplying childcare. The change in the composition of the possible equilibria, with respect to the education of both partners, allows to explaining the facts.(ECON 3) -- UCL, 201

Childcare and commitment within households

This paper proposes a semi-cooperative marital decision process to explain parental underinvestment in childcare. First, parents collectively choose the amount of labor to supply and, in a second step, they each choose the amount of childcare as the outcome of a Cournot game. Non-cooperative behavior stems from the lack of a credible commitment between spouses regarding the amount of childcare they each supply. The theoretical model is able to reproduce the fact that parental time with children increases both with an individual's education and with that of his/her partner. The limited commitment problem leads to an underinvestment in childcare and, hence, child quality: compared to the efficient provision of childcare, the semi-cooperative framework leads to an amount of child quality that is 45% lower.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Childcare and Commitment within Households

This paper proposes a semi-cooperative marital decision process to explain parentalunderinvestment in childcare. First, parents collectively choose the amount of labor tosupply and, in a second step, they each choose the amount of childcare as the outcomeof a Cournot game. Non-cooperative behavior stems from the lack of a credible commitmentbetween spouses regarding the amount of childcare they each supply. Thetheoretical model is able to reproduce that parental time with children increases bothwith an individual's education and with that of his/her partner. The limited commitmentproblem leads to an underinvestment in childcare and, hence, child quality:compared to the efficient provision of childcare, the semi-cooperative framework leadsto an amount of child quality that is 45% lower.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Childcare and Commitment within Households

Parental time with children increases with the education of both the mother and the father. As the education of parents increases, the gap between childcare supplied by mothers relative to that supplied by fathers decreases. A two steps semi-cooperative marital decision model is proposed to explain these two facts. First, parents collectively choose the amount of labor to supply and, in a second step, each of them chooses the amount of childcare as the outcome of a Cournot game. This framework gives rise to indeterminacy of the equilibrium and four selection criteria are proposed: one of a machist society, one of a feminist society, one of a random equilibrium and a last one that estimates the degree of social gender bias towards men. The semi-cooperative theoretical frameworks with the random selection criterion and the criterion that estimates the bias towards men provide the best match with the data

A Model of Voluntary Childlessness

Demographers and sociologists have studied and asked for a theory of childlessness for more than two decades, however, this specific choice of zero fertility has not interested economists. Nowadays, facts show us that permanent childlessness can concern up to 30% of all women of a cohort. This paper gives an endogenous fertility model that looks in detail to the mechanisms leading to fluctuations in childlessness. Two mechanisms are considered. The first mechanism goes through the inter-generational evolution of preferences, that can be either exogenous or endogenous. I show that under some values of the parameters, oscillatory dynamics of childlessness may arise. The second mechanism goes through the female labor market; a more gender parity labor environment and an increase in the fixed cost of becoming parents could be an explanation for the dynamics of fertility and childlessness that we have observed in the United States since the early nineteenth century

A Model of Voluntary Childlessness

Demographers and sociologists have studied why women remain childless for more than two decades; however, this specific choice of zero fertility has not interested economists. Permanent childlessness, in developed countries, can concern up to 30 % of the women in a cohort. Childlessness rates can be positively related to average fertility for some cohorts of women. This paper provides an explanation for this using an endogenous fertility model where individuals have different preferences for children. The main mechanism considered goes through the intergenerational evolution of preferences: I show that a reduction in the gender wage gap, or an increase in the fixed cost of becoming a parent, has a negative effect on both fertility and childlessness. The reduction of childlessness is due to a composition effect: small families shrink more than larger families, and this reduces childlessness.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Family Planning is Not (Necessarily) the Priority Institution for Reducing Fertility

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