Do abler parents have fewer children?

Abstract

A quality versus quantity theory of fertility is proposed that predicts that more able parents chose to produce fewer children because they wish to invest more in their children's education. Using Mincer residuals to measure the unobserved ability of parents, data for Israel are used to show that given everything else more able parents tend to produce fewer children. This is true for fertility data and for birth hazards. Fertility is also found to depend upon social norms, education, and child benefit. © Oxford University Press 2007 All rights reserved.