Volume 29, Number 2 (Spring) 1994

Schultz, T. Paul. 1994. "Marital Status and Fertility in the United States: Welfare and Labor Market Effects." Journal of Human Resources 29(2):637-669.

The incidence of marriage and the proportion of childbearing that occurs within marriage have decreased sharply in the United States in the last several decades. This paper examines whether the probability that a woman is currently married and the number of children she has borne, as reported in the 1980 U.S. Census, are related to two identifiable factors: the variation in welfare programs across states (specifically, AFDC and Medicaid benefits and AFDC-UP expenditures) or the variation in the market wage opportunities available to women and to their potential husbands. AFDC and Medicaid benefit levels are associated with fewer women being currently married. Medicaid benefits are related to lower fertility levels for both black and white women, whereas AFDC benefits in cash and food are associated with lower fertility among white women ages 15-24. Those states that extend AFDC benefits to families with unemployed parents (in other words, fathers in intact poor families) do not have significantly more women married or higher fertility rates, contrary to what might be expected from economic incentives, Men's market wages are associated with more frequent marriage and higher fertility, whereas higher market wage opportunities for women have substantial effect in the opposite direction, all of which are consistent with standard models of gender specialization and the demand for marriage and fertility.

The author is a professor of economics at Yale University. He thanks M. Buchinsky, G. Duncan, S. Hoffman, R. Moffitt, A. Nakamura, B. Torrey, D. Siever, and S. Parker. he acknowledges the value of Robert Moffitt's workshop on marriage patterns and welfare policy and Joanne Sui's Yale senior essay on the topic. Support of the Donner Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to the Yale Economic Demography Program are gratefully acknowledged. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the December 1991 Donner Foundation Conference on the Economic Well-Being of Women and Children held at the University of Minnesota Industrial Relations Center. The programming assistance of Paul McGuire and research assistance of Jyoti Thottam are greatly appreciated. Data from this article are available from the author from August 1994 through August 1997 at Yale University, P.O. Box 208269, Yale Station, New Haven, CT 06520-8269.