A cointegration model of age-specific fertility and female labor supply in the United States

Cointegration methods suitable for estimation and testing with nonstationary data are applied to U.S. time-series data on age-specific fertility rates, female labor force participation rates, women's wages, unemployment rates and educational attainment, and male relative incomes. Likelihood ratio tests indicate the existence of two cointegrating relations that are identified as a fertility equation and a labor supply equation, respectively. Estimated long-run relations are consistent with economic models of fertility and female labor market behavior, and these results are robust across both age-groups and several alternative model specifications.