Pierre André Chiappori (Columbia) "Family Economics" - Cemmap

1. Facts 25
a sharp decrease. This is consistent with Figure 1.30 which shows a peak
in fertility for mothers born in the mid-1930’s; this is the baby boom generation.
The median age at first marriage has also increased at the same
period suggesting fewer "forced marriages" (see Michael, 1988 and Goldin
and Katz, 2002).
Figure 1.33 presents evidence on completed fertility for a cross-section
of six western European countries for women born between 1931 and 1967.
In common with the USA, all of theses countries display a falling pattern
from the mid-1930’s, although the US has a much higher value in the early
years (3.1 as compared to 2.65 for the highest European values). Thus all
these countries indicate a ‘baby-bust’ even though the trends show significant
differences across countries. For example, Italy has the lowest values
throughout this period with a steady decline from 2.3 to 1.5 children per
women. In contrast, the Netherlands starts off with a high value of 2.6 and
falls quickly by about 0.7 children in 1946 and then falls much more slowly
over the next twenty years by about 0.2 children. Most dramatic is the case
of Spain which has the highest value in the early 1940’s (at 2.6 children per
woman) and one of the lowest 25 years latest (at 1.6).
The timing of children is also of interest. In Figures 1.34 and 1.35 we
show the timing of first marriage and first birth for the same countries
as in Figure 1.33. There is a clear relationship between reduced fertility
and the delay in marriage. On the average, age of first child is only two
years after year of marriage (28 and 26, respectively for the latest cohort
born in 1963). In these figures, marriage does not include cohabitation. In
most countries the latter is low for women born before 1960 but for some
countries there is considerable cohabitation. For example, the dramatic rise
in the Danish age at first marriage largely reflects the fact that marriage
before the birth of a child is increasingly rare amongst younger cohorts.
1.4.2 Children under different household arrangements
One consequence of the increasing marital turnover is the sharp rise in the
number of children who live in single parent and step parent households
(see Table 1.16). In the US, 2005, 68 percent of children less than 18 years
old lived with two parents (including step parents), 23 percent lived only
with their mother and 5 percent lived only with their father whilst the rest
lived in households with neither parent present. The impact of living with
single parents on the children depends on the amount of transfers between
unmarried parents. Generally, such transfers are small with a substantial
proportion of eligible mothers receiving no transfer at all. Only about half
of eligible women receive any child support and when a transfer is received
it is about 20 percent of the mother’s income (see Table 1.17 and Figure
1.36). The consequence is that divorced mothers have less than half of the
family income of married mothers and, therefore, children living with single
mothers are often in poverty. The impact of marital turnover on children is