Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to D Macunovich.
The author reviews various methods for projecting U.S. fertility trends and finds that "a promising approach to anticipate the course of future fertility is to examine the tradeoffs women see between children and work outside the home, especially in the context of men's earnings."
The authors show how various kinds of qualitative long run demoeconomic behavior depend on household preferences, productivity, and the cost of childbearing. In particular, a dominant trend in growth can be interspersed with periods of fluctuation as slowly moving changes in productivity, preference, and child care costs push nonlinearities past crucial bifurcation points. Moreover, nonperiodic, essentially unpredictable demoeconomic behavior is robust, thus suggesting a possible explanation for persistent and substantial errors in population forecasts.