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Economic Demography
Economics

UC Berkeley, Summer

Economic demography applies economic models the study of human populations and the life
cycle. This class will explore the economic theory and evidence on the classic demographic topics
of fertility, marriage, migration and aging. Our goal is to connect these long-standing literatures
to modern research on public programs for children, families, the disabled and the elderly. The
first half of the course will focus on the economics of families and children, bridging topics such
as education, marriage and migration. The second half will focus on the economics of health and
aging, including the roles of public programs, pension systems, financial markets and family.

Location: 5

Barrows Hall
Time: Monday-Thursday 2-3:30pm
Course Webpage: access through bpsace.berkeley.edu

Instructor: Mark Borgschulte
Email: mark at econ dot berkeley dot edu
Office Hours: after lecture and by appointment in 677 Evans

Reader: Lei Cheng
Office Hours: Tuesday 10-12, 311 Giannini

Prerequisites

The only strict prerequisite is Economics 1. If you have not taken a first course in statistics, I would
suggest you enroll in that instead of this course, as we will be discussing in depth the applications
of some basic statistical techniques.

Grading and Exams

Everyone will complete the four problem sets (20%) and take the midterm (

0%). For the other
half of the grade, you can choose between a final exam (40%), or a research paper (20% first draft,
20% final draft). Please come talk to me if you are unsure which option is best for you. Late work
will be penalized one grade step per day.

The final will be held from 12:10-2 on Thursday, August 11, the last day of class. Note the
extra half-hour. Please let me know by the end of the first week of class if you have a conflict with
one of the exam dates or due dates for the assignments. If an emergency arises, you must contact
me before the start of the exam. Documentation of a legitimate medical or family emergency will
be required.

Schedule

You need to read the starred readings. They will be referenced in lecture and appear on the exam.
Non-starred will only appear on the exams as referenced in lecture. All articles should be accessible
through the Berkeley library proxy, except as noted.

Week 1. Introduction, Demographic Transition and Fertility

Overview
*How the World Survived the Population Bomb: Lessons From 50 Years of Extraordinary

Demographic History, David Lam, Demography, November 2011, pp. 1231-1262
Demographic Change, Welfare, and Intergenerational Transfers: A Global Overview, Ronald

Lee, 2002

Demographic Transition
*The Demographic Transition: Three Centuries of Fundamental Change, Ronald Lee, Journal

of Economic Perspectives 2003

Fertility and Income
*An Economic Analysis of Fertility, Gary Becker, Demographic and Economic Change in De-

veloped Countries, 1960
Are Children Normal?, Dan A. Black, Natalia Kolesnikova, Seth G. Sanders, Lowell J. Taylor,

Review of Economics and Statistics, 2013

Fertility Evidence
*Contraception as Development? New Evidence from Family Planning in Colombia, Grant

Miller, The Economic Journal, 2010
Quantity-Quality and the One Child Policy: The Only-Child Disadvantage in School Enroll-

ment in Rural China, Nancy Qian, Unpublished Working Paper 2013

Week 2. Women and Families

PS 1 DUE THURSDAY

Women’s Employment and Education in the US
*The Quiet Revolution That Transformed Women’s Employment, Education, and Family, Clau-

dia Goldin, 2006, American Economic Review, 96, 2: 1-21.
*The Homecoming of American College Women, Claudia Goldin, Larry Katz, and Ilyana

Kuziemko, Jour

nal of Economic Perspectives, 2006.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs13524-011-0070-z

http://www.ceda.berkeley.edu/Publications/pdfs/rlee/Text-Figs-Rome2

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/aea/jep/2003/00000017/00000004/art00008

http://www.nber.org/chapters/c2387

http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_00257

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0297.2009.02306.x/full

http://www.econ.yale.edu/~nq3/NANCYS_Yale_Website/Research_files/QQ_20130310

https://aea-net.org/annual_mtg_papers/2006/0106_1645_0101

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/aea/jep/2006/00000020/00000004/art00007

*The Power of the Pill: Oral Contraceptives and Womens Career and Marriage Decisions,
Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz, Journal of Political Economy, 2002

More Power to the Pill, Martha J. Bailey, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2006
Female Labor Supply: Why is the US Falling Behind?, Francine D. Blau and Lawrence M.

Kahn, NBER working paper, 2013

Marriage, Divorce and Cohabitation
*Family Economics, Martin Browning, Pierre-Andre Chiappori, and Yoram Weiss, Chapter 1,

2011
*An Analysis of Out-Of-Wedlock Births in the United States, George Akerlof and Janet Yellen,

Brookings Policy Brief Series, 1996
The Economics of Dowry and Brideprice, Siwan Anderson, Journal of Economic Perspectives,

2007

Household Decision-Making
*Grandmothers and Granddaughters: Old-Age Pensions and Intrahousehold Allocation in South

Africa, Esther Duflo, World Bank Economic Review, 2003
Children and Their Parents’ Labor Supply: Evidence from Exogenous Variation in Family Size,

Joshua D. Angrist and William N. Evans, American Economic Review, 1998

Week 3. Children

PAPER PROPOSAL DUE TUESDAY

Intergenerational Transfers
*Cross-Country Differences in Intergenerational Earnings Mobility, Gary Solon, Journal of Eco-

nomic Perspectives, 2002
Intergenerational Mobility in the Labor Market, Gary Solon, Handbook of Labor Economics,

1999
Eugenics and Economics: Progressive Era, TC Leonard, Journal of Economic Perspec

tives, 2005

Early Childhood and Parental Investment
*Multiple Inference and Gender Differences in the Effects of Early Intervention: A Reevaluation

of the Abecedarian, Perry Preschool, and Early Training Projects ,Michael Anderson, Journal of
the American Statistical Association, 2008

Education
*Does Compulsory School Attendance Affect Schooling and Earnings?, Joshua D. Angrist and

Alan B. Keueger, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1991

http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/2624453/Goldin_PowerPill ?sequence=4

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~baileymj/Bailey_Pill_QJE

http://www.nber.org/papers/w18702?utm_campaign=dig&utm_medium=email&utm_source=dig

http://www.cemmap.ac.uk/resources/chiappori/paper_1

http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/1996/08/childrenfamilies-akerlof

http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.21.4.151

http://wber.oxfordjournals.org/content/17/1/1.short

http://www.jstor.org/stable/116844

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/aea/jep/2002/00000016/00000003/art00004

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1573446399030102

http://www.princeton.edu/~tleonard/papers/retrospectives

http://are.berkeley.edu/~mlanderson/pdf/Anderson%20Preschool

http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/106/4/979.short

The Intergenerational Effects of Compulsory Schooling, Philip Oreopoulos and Marianne E.
Page, Journal of Labor Economics, 2006

The Causal Effect of Education on Earnings, David Card, Handbook of Labor Economics, 1999

Neighborhoods
*Moving to Opportunity in Boston: Early Results of a Randomized Mobility Experiment,

Lawrence F. Katz, Jeffrey R. Kling and Jeffrey B. Liebman, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2001

Week 4. Migration

PROBLEM SET 2 DUE WEDNESDAY

Migration Decision
*Family Migration Decisions, Jacob Mincer, Journal of Political Economy, 1978
*Explaining Why Minority Births Now Outnumber White Births, Jeffrey Passel, Gretchen

Livingston and DVera Cohn, Pew Research Center: Social and Demographic Trends, 2012.
The Roy Model: A Simple Case, V. Joseph Hotz, unpublished course notes
Gains to Migration, John Kennan, NBER Working Paper No. 18307, August 2012
Split Decisions: Family Finance When a Policy Discontinuity Allocates Overseas Work, Michael

A. Clemens; Erwin R. Tiongson, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 6287, December 2012
Fertility, Migration and Altruism, Eli Berman and Zaur Rzakhanov, Working Paper 7545,

February 2000

Immigration: Impacts on Wages of Native Workers
*Jeffrey S. Passel and DVera Cohn U.S. Population Projections: 2005-2050 Pew Research Cen-

ter: Social and Demographic Trends, Feb 11, 2008, pp. 126, 31-32.
*Card, Mariel Boat Lift
*Increasing the Supply of Labor Through Immigration Measuring the Impact on Native-born

Workers, George J. Borjas
Card, Is the New Immigration So Bad?

Immigration: Impacts on Fiscal Budgets
*New York Times, “Room for Debate: The Economics of Immigration”
*Fiscal Impacts of Immigration on the Receiving Population, Ronald Lee and Timothy Miller,

American Economic Review, 2000
*Economics and Emigration: Trillion-Dollar Bills on the Sidewalk, Michael A. Clemens, Journal

of Economic Perspectives, 2011 Read only pp.83-89.

Midterm

Review

http://www.nber.org/papers/w10164

http://ideas.repec.org/h/eee/labchp/3-30.html

http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/116/2/607.short

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1828408 ?acceptTC=true

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/05/17/explaining-why-minority-births-now-outnumber-white-births/

http://public.econ.duke.edu/~vjh3/e262p_07S/readings/Roy_Model_Simple_Case

http://www.nber.org/papers/w18307

http://elibrary.worldbank.org/content/workingpaper/10.1596/1813-9450-6287

http://www.nber.org/papers/w7545 ?new_window=1

http://www.pewhispanic.org/2008/02/11/us- population-projections-2005-2050/

http://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/mariel-impact

http://www.cis.org/sites/cis.org/files/articles/2004/back504

http://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/new-immig

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/04/16/the-economics-of-immigration

http://www.jstor.org/stable/117249

http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/1425376/

Week 5. Aging and Mortality

MIDTERM, MONDAY JULY 22

(Tuesday and Wednesday: Guest Lectures TBA)

Mortality Transition
*The Role of Public Health Improvements in Health Advances: The Twentieth-Century United

States, Grant Miller and David Cutler, Demography, 2005
The Determinants of Mortality, David Cutler, Angus Deaton, and Adriana Lleras-Muney, Jour-

nal of Economic Perspectives, 2006.

Week 6. Retirement

PROBLEM SET 3 DUE THURSDAY

Demographic Dividends, Population Aging and Fiscal Budgets
*Population aging and the generational economy: A global perspective, Part 1, Chapter1,

Andrew Mason and Ronald Lee, 2007
*What Is the Average Retirement Age?, Alicia Munnell, Center for Retirement Research, Boston

College, 2011
*Labor Force Projections Through 2021, Congressional Budget Office, 2011
Technical Panel on Assumptions and Methods, Report to the Social Security Advisory Board,

2007
Population Aging, Intergenerational Transfers, and Economic Growth: Asia in a Global Con-

text, Ronald Lee and Andrew Mason, Aging in Asia: Findings from New and Emerging Data
Initiatives, 2012

Pensions, Savings, Bequests
*The Liabilities and Risks of State-Sponsored Pension Plans, Robert Novy-Marx and Joshua

D. Rauh, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2009
*Employer Sponsored Pensions: A Primer, Brendan Cushing-Daniels and Richard W. Johnson,

The Retirement Policy Project, Urban Institute, 2008
Behavioral Issues in Pensions, Richard Thaler, 2008

Social Security
*Social Security: A Primer, Chapter 2, pp. 13-28, Congressional Budget Office, 2001
*The Social Security Fix-It Book, Center for Retirement Research, 2009
Saving Social Security, Peter A. Diamond and Peter R. Orszag, Journal of Economic Perspec-

tives, 2005
5

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/demography/v042/42.1cutler.html

http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.20.3.97

http://idl-bnc.idrc.ca/dspace/bitstream/10625/47092/1/133467

http://crr.bc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/IB_11-11

http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=12052

http://www.ssab.gov/documents/2007_TPAM_REPORT_FINAL_copy.PDF

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=13361&page=77

http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.23.4.191

http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/901144_employer-sponsored_pensions

http://assets.aarp.org/rgcenter/econ/2007_02_savings

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/32xx/doc3213/EntireReport

http://crr.bc.edu/images/stories/Special%20Projects/social_security_fix-it_book

http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/0895330054048722

The Progressivity of Social Security, Jeffrey R. Brown, Julia Lynn Coronado, and Don Fuller-
ton,NBER RRC Paper NB06-10, 2006

Retirement Decision
*Jonathan Gruber and David Wise (1998) Social Security and Retirement: An International

Comparison, American Economic Review (May) v.88 n.2, pp. 158163.
*Effect of Presidential Service on Life Expectancy, Mark Borgschulte
Social Security Programs and Retirement Around the World: Introduction and Summary of

Papers, Jonathan Gruber, David Wise, NBER Working Paper No. 6134, August 1997
Future Social Security Entitlements and the Retirement Decision, Courtney C. Coile and

Jonathan Gruber, Review of Economics and Statistics, 2007
The Effect of Health Insurance on Retirement, Brigitte Madrian, Brookings Papers on Eco-

nomic Activity, 1994

Week 7. Health Care

FIRST DRAFT OF PAPER DUE TUESDAY

Health and Aging
*Policy Implications Of The Gradient Of Health And Wealth, Angus Deaton, Health Affairs,

2002
Trends in Health of Older Adults in the United States: Past, Present, Future, Linda G. Martin,

Robert F. Schoeni, and Patricia M. Andreski, Demography, 2010

Disability Insurance
*Primer on Disability Benefits: Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental

Security Income (SSI), Scott Szymendera, CRS Report for Congress. 2010
Does Disability Insurance Receipt Discourage Work? Using Examiner Assignment to Estimate

Causal Effects of SSDI Receipt, Nicole Maestas, Kathleen J. Mullen and Alexander Strand, RAND
Working Paper 2011

Medicare
*Medicare: A Primer, Kaiser Family Foundation, 2010
*The (Paper)Work of Medicine: Understanding International Medical Costs, Cutler, David

M.; Ly, Dan P., The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Volume 25, Number 2, Spring 2011 , pp.
3-25(23)

Does Medicare Save Lives?, David Card, Carlos Dobkin, Nicole Maestas, Quarterly Journal of
Economics, 2009

Medicaid and Long-run Care

http://www.nber.org/programs/ag/rrc/NB06- 10%20Brown,%20Coronado,%20Fullerton%20FINAL

http://www.jstor.org/stable/116911

http://www.nber.org/papers/w6134

http://economics.mit.edu/files/6426

http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/projects/bpea/1994%201/1994a_bpea_madrian_burtless_gruber

http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/21/2/13.full +html

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1353%2Fdem.2010.0003

http://aging.senate.gov/crs/ss27

http://www.mrrc.isr.umich.edu/publications/papers/pdf/wp241

http://www.kff.org/medicare/upload/7615-03

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/aea/jep/2011/00000025/00000002/art00001

http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/124/2/597.short

*Long-Term Care: Financing Overview and Issues for Congress,, Julie Stone, Congressional
Research Service Report, 2010

*Medicaid and Long-Term Care Services and Supports, Kaiser Family Foundation, 2011
*The Oregon Health Insurance Experiment: Evidence from the First Year, Amy Finkelstein,

Sarah Taubman, Bill Wright, Mira Bernstein, Jonathan Gruber, Joseph P. Newhouse, Heidi Allen,
Katherine Baicker and Oregon Health Study Group, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2012

The Role of Medicare for the People Dually Eligible for Medicare and Medicaid, Kaiser Family
Foundation, 2011

Grandpa and the Snapper: the Wellbeing of the Elderly who Live with Children,Angus Deaton,
Arthur A. Stone, NBER Working Paper, 2013

Week 8. Macro-Demographic Topics

PROBLEM SET 4 DUE TUESDAY

FINAL DRAFT OF PAPER DUE THURSDAY

Population Growth and Economic Growth
*An Essay on the Principle of Population (first edition), Chapters 1 and 2, Thomas Malthus,

1798
*An Exact Consumption-Loan Model of Interest with or without the Social Contrivance of

Money, Paul Samuelson, Journal of Political Economy, 1958
*The Conditions of Agricultural Growth: The Economics of Agrarian Change under Population

Pressure, Introduction and Chapter 1, Ester Boserup, 1965
Population Growth and Technological Change: One Million B.C. to 1990, Michael Kremer, The

Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1993

Overpopulation and the Environment
*The Tragedy of the Commons, Garrett Hardin, Science, 1968
*Are More People Necessarily A Problem?, David Malakoff, Science, 2011

Review

***FINAL EXAM, last day of class, 2-4

http://aging.senate.gov/crs/aging27

http://kff.org/medicaid/upload/2186-08

http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/127/3/1057.short

http://www.kff.org/medicare/upload/8138

http://www.nber.org/papers/w19100

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4239/4239-h/4239-h.htm

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1826989

http://www.biw.kuleuven.be/aee/clo/idessa_files/Boserup1965

http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/108/3/681.short

http://www.cs.wright.edu/~swang/cs409/Hardin

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6042/544

Economic Demography
Problem Set

1 Fertility: Value of Time and Quantity-Quality

Consider the standard economic model of fertility that was introduced in lecture. We will

develop predictions about fertility for a married couple consisting of a husband and a wife.

First, some notation:

n ≡ number of children
x ≡ consumption of goods by parents

Y ≡ non-wife’s income
I ≡ total family income
tc ≡ time cost of a child

q ≡ goods required for each child
pq ≡ price of child’s consumption goods
px ≡ price of parent’s consumption goods

w ≡ wife’s potential/actual wage
U ≡ U(x, n) ≡ couple’s utility

T ≡ total discretionary time per day, e.g. 1

hours

Make the following simplifying assumptions:

• The wife does all the child care, and the husband does none

• The amount of time spent per child by the mother is fixed

• The amount of goods required per child is fixed

• The workload of the husband is fixed

• The wife’s allocation of time to child rearing or the labor market is the choice variable

1. Write expressions for the wife’s income from work, the total family money income, the

total family money expenditures, and the family budget constraint.

. What is the shadow value of a child? Write the expression and explain the concept in

words (one sentence).

. Draw the family budget constraint and the indifference curve associated with the

family’s optimal level of fertility and consumption. Label the axes, the optimum (x∗, n∗),

and nmax, the maximum number of children the family could have.

. Suppose the wife’s wage increases. In the same diagram, label the new optimal choice

for x and n, (x∗∗, n∗∗).

. Graphically decompose the wage change into an income effect and a substitution effect.

Label the intermediary (hypothetical) optimum (xint,nint). In your graph, which effect is

larger? In your graph, are children “normal” (i.e. a normal good or an inferior good)? (It

would be good practice to draw the figure several times to see the difference between normal

and inferior outcomes.)

2 Marriage and Divorce

1. Define the terms “positive assortative mating” and “negative assortative mating” in one

sentence each. Give two examples of traits for which you would expect positively assortative

mating, and two examples of traits for which you expect negative assortative mating.

2. Becker’s model of marriage predicts that those with high wage opportunities will tend

to marry those with lower wage opportunities because of the benefits of division of labor and

specialization within the household. What type of assortative mating does Becker’s model

suggest? In two sentences, explain why Becker’s theory may fail in a modern context.

3. Use the following facts to answer the questions below:

(a) Pat can earn 10 utils when working 100% time.

(b) Chris can earn 500 utils when working 100% time.

(d) Each person absolutely requires home production tasks that would take half of the

potential time for earning money, but alternatively his/her partner could complete all of

the home production so that their partner could work full-time if doing so would maximize

utility. For each individual, utility equals money income plus 15 utils derived from the

necessary home production.

i. Compute the utility of each person when single, assuming he/she devotes 50% time to

the labor market and 50% time to home production.

ii. Compute the total utility of a Pat/Chris pairing. Next compute the total utility of a

Pat/Quinn pairing. Finally, compute the total utility of a Quinn/Chris pairing.

iii. Based on the economic model that people maximize their gains to marriage when

choosing a partner, which one of the above pairs would choose to marry? [Hint: compute

the gains to marriage for each pair.] In one sentence, explain the economic intuition for your

result.

4. Jeremy (male) and Belinda (female) are married with children. Jeremy works for an

annual salary s. Belinda works part-time in the labor force, on an hourly wage w. The

economy enters a stage of rapid inflation, so that the price of consumption doubles over the

course of a year. While Jeremy’s employer raises Jeremy’s salary at the rate of inflation (so

that Jeremy’s real salary remains constant- i.e. his new salary is 2s), Belinda’s employer

takes advantage of the inflationary period and holds Belinda’s nominal hourly wage fixed at

w, thereby effectively decreasing her wage in real terms. How would this change affect the

gains to marriage for Jeremy and Belinda? Assuming that the share of the gains to marriage

going to Jeremy remain the same throughout the period, would Belinda’s real wage decrease

lead to a higher or lower probability of divorce? Explain in one sentence.

5. According to the economic theory discussed in lecture, when will a couple decide to

divorce? Describe three factors that could be destabilizing to a marriage and explain why

they could lead to divorce, with reference to gains from marriage [one sentence each].

3 Data Analysis Using IPUMS

The Goldin (2006) reading makes use of data on female labor force participation in the

United States over much of the 20th century. In this exercise, you will use Census data to

examine changes in female labor force participation from 1930-2010 by marital status. The

data are available from IPUMS, which stands for Integrated Public Use Microdata Series.

(Note: This is an excellent source of data for a research paper. It will allow you to analyze

data and construct tables online so you do not need to know how to use statistical software.)

The following steps will walk you through creating the tables, and will give you a short

introduction to using Census data.

Be aware. Although the steps below are not difficult, they may take more time to

complete than you may anticipate. Especially if you anticipate that you might have some

difficulty working with data online, make sure to do this exercise early enough to allow

you to go to one of the computer sessions or office hours with any questions. Also, if you

are currently looking at the problem set online, we strongly suggest that you print out these

directions before you go further, so that you can refer to them step-by-step. PLEASE MAKE

SURE NOT TO LEAVE THIS TILL THE LAST MOMENT!

Finding the data:

1. Go to www.ipums.org – IPUMS International (good source of Census data from other

countries) – IPUMS USA (this is what we want: U.S. Censuses back until 1850) – IPUMS

CPS (Current Population Survey)

2. Click ”IPUMS-USA”

3. On the left-hand side, a few options: – ”Browse and select data” allows you to download

the data and analyze it using statistical software such as Stata – IPUMS Registration. This

is the first step if you have never used IPUMS before. Click this and enter your email

address. Once youve received access, go back to the IPUMS-USA page. – Also an option

to analyze data online. Click this. – Choose ”use data from multiple samples, 1850-2011 –

When prompted, enter your email and password.

– This is the interface we’ll use to do our data analysis

Understanding the variables: Now that we have selected the right data set, we need to

figure out which specific variables we want to use for our analysis, and also how to use these

variables to restrict our sample to the people we want to study.

The first step is to identify the variables we’ll need:

1. Age

2. Sex

3. Labor force participation status

4. Marital status

5. Year

In order to use these variables, we’ll need to see how they’re coded.

From the top, left-hand corner, choose the link ”Codebook”. This will open a new window

or tab, depending on your browser.

Choose ”Sequential Variable List”, and a set of headings will come up. The first are

’Household variables’, the second ’Person variables’.

From ”Person variables”, click ”Demographic”. You will now see that two of the variables

that we care about are right near the top of the list: age and sex.

Click ”age”. The codebook expands to tell us that the variable named ”age” stands for

age. It tells us that there are 84,512,873 person records in the database, and that the valid

range of age codes is between 0-135. (Dont worry about extreme values here as we will just

be working with 21-25 year olds. Twenty-one year-olds are conveniently given a code of

21, 22 year-olds 22, etc.) Below you will see the codebook entry for ”sex”, which is coded

numerically. Note that: 1= male 2= female

– Labor force participation can be found under Work variables (”labforce”) 0 = N/A

1 = Not in the labor force 2 = In the labor force – Marital status is under Demographic

variables (”marst”) 1 = Married, spouse present 2 = Married, spouse absent 3 = Separated

4 = Divorced 5 = Widowed 6 = Never married/single . = no data – year is in the Technical

category (1850-2011). Notice that there is data for each decade through 2000 and for each

year since. Starting in 2001, the U.S. Census Bureau began collecting and publishing data

more frequently through a survey called the American Community Survey (ACS).

Now were ready to make some tables!

We want to be back at the original page where we chose the ”Codebook” link. (This

screen has a set of boxes titled ”Row”, ”Column”, and ”Control”.).

***** Let’s begin by generating some tables displaying the proportion of women who

work by marital status for women age 21-25 at each census from 1930-2010.

Restricting our analysis to these younger women helps us see changes in labor force entry

across cohorts over time.

The “Row box will always represent the variable on your Y-axis (your dependent vari-

able). Here we want to plot labor force participation status over time, so enter the labor force

variable name from the codebook. The “Column box is for the X-axis (your independent

variable). Since were plotting labor force participation over time, we need our time variable

here (“year”). “Control asks how we want to further disaggregate our data. We want to look

at distinct trends for different marital statuses, so put that variables name here (“marst”).

”Selection Filter(s)” help us specify which data we want to include from the variables

weve entered above, and which data we wish to leave out.

Recall from the table above that the range of possible values for our variables exceeds

the range we want to work with. Specifically, we want to exclude:

1. men with our sex variable, 2. women outside our age range with the age variable 3.

and years before 1930 and after 2010 with the time variable. Well also exclude the annual

data between 2000 and 2010 so we have only one data point per decade. Enter sex(2) in

Selection Filters

Because we have several selection filters here, we separate them with commas all in the

same line. age(21-25)

To get one data point per decade from 1930-2010, well tell SDA we want the range of

data from 1930-2000, plus the year 2010 (this excludes the annual data from 2001-2009).

year(1930-2000, 2010)

Now, lets look a bit more closely at our marital status and labor force participation

variables.

For marital status, there are six different groups in addition to a value indicating No

Data. For this homework, we only want to compare the two largest groups: married with a

spouse present and never married/single. We also want to exclude those without any data.

To do this, well tell SDA to just include marital status values 1 and 6. marst(1,6)

Similarly, for labor force participation, we want to exclude the N/A value. labforce(1-2)

You should now have five terms in your Selection Filters box, each specifying values

to include within parentheses and each separated from those around it by commas. Were

almost done!

sex(2), year(1930-2000, 2010), age(21-25), marst(1,6), labforce(1-2)

Finally, check that Weight is set to Person weight, that “Column is checked under “Per-

centaging and that the “Type of chart is a Line Chart.

Now you can run the tables. Please copy and paste the first two figures, give them

informative titles, and cite the source of your data underneath (name of source, website,

date of access). You do not need to include the final figure of average trends. [2 points]

Interpreting your results:

(a) In approximately what year did 50% of young married women begin to participate in

the labor force? [1 point]

(b) In approximately what year did 50% of young never married/single women begin to

participate in the labor force? [1 point]

young married women in the labor force than young never married/single women? [1 point]

(d) What trend do you notice in female labor force participation among married women

aged 21- 25 over time? During which decade(s) (i.e. 1930-1940, 1940-1950, etc.) is the

change in female labor force participation the greatest? [2 points]

(e) Looking at the second table and graph which show trends in female labor force

participation for never married/single women, what trend do you notice in female labor

force participation across time? Has labor force risen or fallen since 1960? [2 points]

(f) There are many possible reasons for the different labor force participation rates

by marital status. Think about what other factors might help to explain this relationship

(i.e. an omitted variable that affects both marital status and labor force participation).

If you could add one additional piece of information that would help us understand the

relationship between marital status and labor force participation, what would it be? How

would you expect it to change the observed correlation? [1point]

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