The Economics of Baby Booms and Busts
From the mid-20th century baby boom to the recent pandemic baby bust, changes in fertility can have large and far-reaching consequences. Join Professor Kasey Buckles for a discussion of how economic factors affect people's fertility decisions, why birth rates are declining, and what this trend means for the future of labor, education, and policy in the United States.
Kasey Buckles, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Economics and a Concurrent Professor of Gender Studies at the University of Notre Dame. She is also a Research Associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Board Member on the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession. Her research interests include the economics of the family, economic demography, and child health and well-being; in her recent work, she has studied the relationship between fertility and the business cycle, the causes of fertility decline in the U.S., and the effects of the opioid crisis on children.