Khanh Hoang

  School of Business and Economics | Bachelor Economics and Business Economics

"To The Siblings They Never Had: Freedom of Fertility and Maternal Labor Supply"

Khanh's elevator pitch
Standard economic models predict a negative effect of fertility on maternal labor supply, as women disproportionately face the responsibilities associated with childbirth and child-rearing. While the negative relationship between the number of children and female participation in the labor force is well established, causal interpretation of this relationship is complicated by the endogeneity of fertility. In this paper, I exploit the fertility-restricting effect of the One-Child Policy, a Chinese radical birth planning program, in an instrumental variable framework to identify the causal impact of a second birth on women’s labor force participation. The study suggests that having a second child significantly reduced the extent of Chinese women's participation in the labor force, and relates to the debate on whether the One-Child Policy contributes to China’s development of human capital as well as economic development in the long run.