Fertility in the US exhibits an increasingly more procyclical pattern. We argue that women’s breadwinner status is behind procyclical and lower fertility: (i) women’s relative income in the family has increased over time; and (ii) women are more likely to work in relatively stable and countercyclical industries whereas men tend to work in volatile and procyclical industries. This creates a countercyclical gender income gap as women become breadwinners in recessions, producing an insurance effect of women’s income. Our quantitative framework shows that rising breadwinner status of women can explain both the emergence of procyclical fertility and the decline in fertility rate in the second half of the 20th century.

美国的生育率呈现出越来越顺周期性的模式。我们认为，女性养家糊口的地位是顺周期和低生育率的背后原因：（i）女性在家庭中的相对收入随着时间的推移而增加；(ii) 女性更有可能在相对稳定和反周期的行业工作，而男性则倾向于在不稳定和顺周期的行业工作。随着女性在经济衰退中成为养家糊口的人，这就造成了反周期的性别收入差距，产生了女性收入的保险效应。我们的定量框架表明，女性养家糊口地位的提高可以解释顺周期生育率的出现和 20 世纪下半叶生育率的下降。