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Abstract:The most common measure of reproductive behavior is the total fertility rate, which measures children born per woman. However, little work exists measuring male fertility behavior. We use survey data from several waves of the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) in eight Sub-Saharan African countries. We document several interesting differences in fertility outcomes of men and women. First, comparing completed fertility by birth cohorts, we find that on average men have more children than women in seven out of eight countries we consider. The gaps are large – reaching up to 4.6 children in Burkina Faso. Positive gaps are possible when populations are growing and men father children with younger women. Such a situation often coincides with polygyny. Indeed, we find that the fertility gap is positively related to the degree of polygyny. Second, we find a lower variance in completed fertility rates for women than for men, especially in high polygyny countries. Third, we find that differences in the desire to have children can largely be explained by differences in realized fertility. Finally, we find that for men, the demographic transition started earlier and was steeper than for women. These novel facts are useful when building theories of fertility behavior.

We estimate the association between the unemployment status of young women and the probability that they are subject to violence, using Swedish population register data covering the period 1999-2008. These data contain the highest-level classification of diagnoses made by medical experts at every individual in-patient and out-patient visit to medical care units, including every contact with a physician. We distinguish between domestic and non-domestic violence. It turns out that unemployed women are significantly more likely to be victimized than employed women with the same individual characteristics. This is mostly reflected in indicators of nondomestic violence and long-run abuse among unemployed female youths.

AbstractPersonal bankruptcies in the United States have increased dramatically, rising from 1.4 per thousand working age adults in 1970 to 8.5 in 2002. We use a heterogeneous agent life-cycle model with competitive lenders to evaluate several commonly offered explanations. We find that increased uncertainty (income shocks, expense uncertainty) cannot account quantitatively for the rise in bankruptcies. Instead, the rise in filings appears mainly to reflect changes in the credit market environment: a decrease in the transaction cost of lending and in the cost of bankruptcy. We also argue that the abolition of usury laws and other legal changes were unimportant. (JEL D14, E44, G21, G28)