The Center for Demographic and Social Analysis presents

“The Family Demography of the Great Recession”
with Daniel Schneider, RWJF Scholar in Health Policy Research, UC Berkeley

Tuesday, January 22, 2013
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Social Science Plaza B, Room 4250

The Great Recession had material impacts on the economic standing of American families, increasing unemployment, destroying wealth, and creating substantial economic uncertainty.  Prior research in demography and sociology dating to the Great Depression suggests that these shocks to family balance sheets could have repercussions for relationship formation, relationship dissolution, and fertility.  But, theory provides ambiguous guidance about even the sign of these effects.  For instance, fertility might have increased if men and women used time out of employment to have children or might have decreased if the recession made childbearing unaffordable.  In this talk, Schneider uses several sources of individual level data on demographic behavior and intentions in conjunction with administrative data on economic conditions to estimate the effect of the recession on the formation of marriages and cohabitations, the dissolution of such unions, and on fertility.

This event is part of the Population, Society and Inequality Colloquium Series.

For further information, please contact Sandy Cushman, scushman@uci.edu or 949-824-3344.