TY  - JOUR
AU  - Shang,Qingyan
AU  - Weinberg,Bruce A.
TI  - Opting For Families: Recent Trends in the Fertility of Highly Educated Women
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 15074
PY  - 2009
Y2  - June 2009
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15074
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15074.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Qingyan Shang
Department of Economics
University at Buffalo
State University of New York
415 Fronczak Hall
Buffalo, NY 14260
E-Mail: qshang2@buffalo.edu

Bruce A. Weinberg
Department of Economics
Ohio State University
410 Arps Hall
1945 North High Street
Columbus, OH  43210
Tel: 614/292-5642
Fax: 614/292-3906
E-Mail: weinberg.27@osu.edu
AB  - Observers have argued about whether highly-educated women are opting out of their careers and for families. If so, it is natural to expect fertility to increase and, insofar as children are associated with lower employment, further declines in employment. This paper provides a comprehensive study of recent trends in the fertility of college-graduate women. We study fertility at a range of ages; consider both the intensive and extensive margins, explore a range of data sets; and study the period from 1940 to 2006. In contrast to most existing work, we find that college graduate women are indeed opting for families. Fertility increases at almost all ages along both the intensive and extensive margins since the late 1990s or 2000 and this recent increase in fertility is consistent across datasets.
ER  -