Labor Supply and Fertility of Married Women: An Analysis with Grouped and Individual Data from the 1970 U.S. Census

Abstract

This study uses 1970 Census data at three different levels of aggregation to estimate a model of the labor supply and fertility of married women. Estimates with both the individual Public Use Sample observations and the published SMSA average data generally agree with findings from three previous Censuses and alternative data sources, especially in the case of labor supply. Direct grouping of the Public Use Sample observations by SMSA leads to very different labor supply estimates. Further analysis shows that there may be substantial biases in the estimates derived with published SMSA average data from the 1970 and previous Censuses.