Culture: An Empirical Investigation of Beliefs, Work, and Fertility

TLDR

The study uses past female labor force participation and fertility rates to reflect a country’s economic conditions and cultural beliefs about women’s roles. The authors examine how culture influences second‑generation American women’s work and fertility behavior. Culture is proxied with the ancestry country’s historical female labor participation and fertility rates, focusing on the belief component relevant to U.S. residents. The cultural proxies significantly predict work and fertility outcomes even after controlling for education and spousal characteristics, and the results are robust to unobserved human‑capital factors.

Abstract

We study culture by examining the work and fertility behavior of second-generation American women. Culture is proxied with past female labor force participation and total fertility rates from the woman's country of ancestry. The values of these variables capture not only economic and institutional conditions but also the country's preferences and beliefs regarding women's roles. Since the women live in the United States, only the belief and preference components are potentially relevant. We show that the cultural proxies have positive significant explanatory power even after controlling for education and spousal characteristics, and we demonstrate that the results are unlikely to be explained by unobserved human capital. JEL: J13, J16, J22, J24, Z13