Market, Government, and Israel's Muted Baby Boom

Cohorts born in Israel since the late 1910s were approximately 70 percent larger than earlier cohorts. This brought about changes in the age structure that are even more dramatic than the American baby boom.This paper follows the impact of the large cohorts on the school system and on the labor market, emphasizing the role played by the public sector. In terms of the number of teaching posts the school system demonstrated on the whole a very prompt ability to adjust to the pressure of high number of pupils. However,as rates of growth of pupils decelerated, inputs in the school system failed to adujst down. As a result, when the larger cohorts moved up the educational scale,the combination of rapid adjustment where they arrived and sluggish adjustment imparted an upward pressure to the aggregate expenditure on education. When the large cohorts arrived at the age of entry into the labor force the impact was delayed and muted by a rapid expansion of the army and of the universities. Relative earnings cfthe young men 18-24 declined sharply during the decade. The earnings of the very young seem to be responsive to the relative size of a broader age group(18-34), as well as to the size elderly (65 plus).

Genes, Education, and Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study

Recent advances have led to the discovery of specific genetic variants that predict educational attainment. We study how these variants, summarized as a genetic score variable, are associated with human capital accumulation and labor market outcomes in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). We demonstrate that the same genetic score that predicts education is also associated with higher wages, but only among individuals with a college education. Moreover, the genetic gradient in wages has grown in more recent birth cohorts, consistent with interactions between technological change and labor market ability. We also show that individuals who grew up in economically disadvantaged households are less likely to go to college when compared to individuals with the same genetic score, but from higher socioeconomic status households. Our findings provide support for the idea that childhood socioeconomic status is an important moderator of the economic returns to genetic endowments. Moreover, the finding that childhood poverty limits the educational attainment of high-ability individuals suggests the existence of unrealized human potential

The impact of women's social position on fertility in developing countries

This paper examines ideas about possible ways in which the extent of women's autonomy, women's economic dependency, and other aspects of their position vis-à-vis men influence fertility in Third World populations. Women's position or “status” seems likely to be related to the supply of children because of its links with age at marriage. Women's position may also affect the demand for children and the costs of fertility regulation, though some connections suggested in the literature are implausible. The paper ends with suggestions for future research.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45660/1/11206_2005_Article_BF01124382.pd