The Effects of Sons and Daughters on Men's Labor Supply and Wages

37 Pages Posted: 20 Mar 2000

See all articles by Shelly J. Lundberg

Shelly J. Lundberg

University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB); IZA Institute of Labor Economics; University of Bergen - Department of Economics

Elaina Rose

University of Washington - Department of Economics

Date Written: October 1999

Abstract

In this paper we estimate the effects of children and the differential effects of sons and daughters on men's labor supply and hourly wage rates. The responses to fatherhood of two cohorts of men from the PSID sample--men born in and before 1950 and men born after 1950--are examined separately, and we use fixed effects estimation to control for unobserved heterogeneity. We find that fatherhood significantly increases the hourly wage rates and annual hours of work for men from both cohorts, and that it is important to allow for heterogeneity and non-linearity in estimating these effects. Most notably, men's labor supply and wage rates increase significantly more in response to the births of sons than to the births of daughters.

JEL Classification: J16, J22, J23, J24

Suggested Citation

Lundberg, Shelly J. and Rose, Elaina, The Effects of Sons and Daughters on Men's Labor Supply and Wages (October 1999). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=194935 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.194935

Shelly J. Lundberg (Contact Author)

University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) ( email )

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IZA Institute of Labor Economics

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University of Bergen - Department of Economics ( email )

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Elaina Rose

University of Washington - Department of Economics ( email )

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