David Autor, Ford Professor of Economics, Assoc. Department Head
| Jan/24 | Tue | 01:00PM-02:00PM | E52-432 |
Enrollment: Limited: First come, first served (no advance sign-up)
The structure of marriage and child-rearing in U.S. households has undergone two marked shifts in the last three decades: a steep decline in the prevalence of marriage among young adults, and a sharp rise in the fraction of children born to unmarried mothers or living in single-headed households. One potential contributor to both phenomena is the declining labor market opportunities faced by non-college males, which make them less valuable as marital partners. But is this hypothesis relevant, or rather a bunch of bad journalism dressed up in economic terminology? This IAP talk will offer both theory and evidence on the role that the falling marriage-market value of young men may have played in the rising rate of out-of-wedlock childbearing and single-headed childrearing in the United States.
Sponsor(s): Economics
Contact: Beata Shuster, E52-439A, 617 253-8883, BSHUSTER@MIT.EDU