Collection
Lifecycle Fertility Models
Invited are theoretical papers on fertility choices from a life cycle perspective, that is, the choice of the optimal childbearing ages within a model of multiple periods of fertility.
Editor: Gregory Ponthiere, UC Louvain, Belgium
Following the pioneer contributions of Becker and coauthors in the 1970s-1980s, microeconomic models of fertility choices have focused on the selection, by the household, of a single fertility variable equal to the total number of children over the life cycle, without considering the issue of the timing of births. However, given the quick evolution of the average age at first birth since the 1970s (it has grown from about 24 years to beyond 30 years in Western European countries), microeconomic models have, during the last decades, started to examine fertility choices from a life cycle perspective, that is, the choice of the optimal childbearing ages within a model of multiple periods of fertility. Since its early days, JOPE has played a key role in the empirical and theoretical study of the dynamics of childbearing ages, and in the development of models of life cycle fertility. Those lifecycle fertility models allow a better understanding of the interactions between individual decisions relative to the timing and number of children, education choices and labour supply decisions.
JOPE Collections are a set of published papers on issues of significant relevance for the journal. Authors are continuously invited to submit their related work for evaluation stating their specific interest to contribute in the submission cover letter. JOPE Editors will treat those submissions with particular interest and speedy handling. Articles will be immediately published after final acceptance.
