CREAT: Census Research Exploration and Analysis Tool

Family Formation and the Great Recession

December 2020

Written by: Garrett Anstreicher

Working Paper Number:

CES-20-42R

Abstract

This paper studies how exposure to recessions as a young adult impacts long-term family formation in the context of the Great Recession. Using confidential linked survey data from U.S. Census, I document that exposure to a 1 pp larger unemployment shock in the Great Recession in one's early 20s is associated with a 0.8 pp decline in likelihood of marriage by their early 30s. These effects are not explained by substitution toward cohabitation with unmarried partners, are concentrated among whites, and are notably absent for individuals from high-income families. The estimated effects on fertility are also negative but imprecisely estimated. A back-of-the-envelope exercise suggests that these reductions in family formation may have increased the long-run impact of the Recession on consumption relative to its impact on individual earnings by a considerable extent.

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Keywords Keywords are automatically generated using KeyBERT, a powerful and innovative keyword extraction tool that utilizes BERT embeddings to ensure high-quality and contextually relevant keywords.

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:
recession, wealth, recessionary, socioeconomic, decade, intergenerational, family, fertility, marriage, divorced, recession exposure, couple

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:
Department of Commerce, Social Security Administration, National Science Foundation, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, Decennial Census, Chicago Census Research Data Center, Federal Register, American Community Survey, Social Security Number, Protected Identification Key, Department of Health and Human Services, National Academy of Sciences, Disclosure Review Board, Person Validation System, Federal Statistical Research Data Center

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