Generational Trends
The Covid-19 Baby Bump: The Unexpected Increase in U.S. Fertility Rates in Response to the Pandemic
Martha Bailey, Janet Currie & Hannes Schwandt
NBER Working Paper, October 2022
Abstract:
We use restricted natality microdata covering the universe of U.S. births for 2015-2021 and California births from 2015 to August 2022 to examine the childbearing response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Although fertility rates declined in 2020, these declines appear to reflect reductions in travel to the U.S. Childbearing in the U.S. among foreign-born mothers declined immediately after lockdowns began -- nine months too soon to reflect the pandemic's effects on conceptions. We also find that the COVID pandemic resulted in a small "baby bump" among U.S.-born mothers. The 2021 baby bump is the first major reversal in declining U.S. fertility rates since 2007 and was most pronounced for first births and women under age 25, which suggests the pandemic led some women to start their families earlier. Above age 25, the baby bump was also pronounced for women ages 30-34 and women with a college education, who were more likely to benefit from working from home. The data for California track the U.S. data closely and suggest that U.S. births remained elevated through the third quarter of 2022.
Does paid family leave save infant lives? Evidence from California's paid family leave program
Feng Chen
Contemporary Economic Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
Paid family leave (PFL) aims to help working parents balance their careers and family responsibilities while also improving the well-being of infants. Using linked U.S. birth and infant death data with a difference-in-differences framework, I find that a 6-week PFL in California reduced the post-neonatal mortality rate by 0.135 -- that is, it saved approximately 339 infant lives. There were fewer deaths from health-related causes and larger effects for infants with married mothers and for infant boys. Additional checks and placebo examinations indicate that the observed effect is not due to contemporaneous shocks but rather is causal.
The role of parental genotype in the intergenerational transmission of externalizing behavior: Evidence for genetic nurturance
Sally I-Chun Kuo et al.
Development and Psychopathology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to examine possible pathways by which genetic risk associated with externalizing is transmitted in families. We used molecular data to disentangle the genetic and environmental pathways contributing to adolescent externalizing behavior in a sample of 1,111 adolescents (50% female; 719 European and 392 African ancestry) and their parents from the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism. We found evidence for genetic nurture such that parental externalizing polygenic scores were associated with adolescent externalizing behavior, over and above the effect of adolescents' own externalizing polygenic scores. Mediation analysis indicated that parental externalizing psychopathology partly explained the effect of parental genotype on children's externalizing behavior. We also found evidence for evocative gene-environment correlation, whereby adolescent externalizing polygenic scores were associated with lower parent-child communication, less parent-child closeness, and lower parental knowledge, controlling for parental genotype. These effects were observed among participants of European ancestry but not African ancestry, likely due to the limited predictive power of polygenic scores across ancestral background. These results demonstrate that in addition to genetic transmission, genes influence offspring behavior through the influence of parental genotypes on their children's environmental experiences, and the role of children's genotypes in shaping parent-child relationships.
Developmental risk sensitivity theory: The effects of socio-economic status on children's risky gain and loss decisions
Teresa Harvey & Peter Blake
Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences, 28 September 2022
Abstract:
Evolutionary developmental theories propose that early environments shape human risk preferences. Developmental risk sensitivity theory (D-RST) focuses on the plasticity of risk preferences during childhood and makes predictions about the effect of reward size based on a child's social environment. By contrast, prospect theory predicts risk aversion for gains and risk seeking for losses regardless of environment or status. We presented 4 to 10-year-olds (n = 194) with a set of trials in which they chose between a certain amount and a chance to receive more or nothing. Two trials were equal expected value choices that differed by stake size and two were unequal expected value choices. Children either received gain trials or loss trials. Social environment was assessed using socio-economic status (SES) and subjective social status. Results confirmed the predictions of D-RST for gains based on SES. Children from lower-SES families differentiated between the high- and low-value trials and made more risky decisions for the high-value reward compared with higher-SES children. Children from higher-SES families were more risk averse for both trial types. Decisions for loss trials did not conform completely to either theory. We discuss the results in relation to evolutionary developmental theories.