World War II, Missing Men and Out of Wedlock Childbearing

Bibliographic Data

ID9704617
AuthorsDirk Bethmann (0000-0002-1949-4106, Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg), Michael Kvasnicka (0000-0002-9943-0662, RWI, IfW and IZA)
Year2013
Volume123
Issue567
Pages162-194
Publication date2013-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Economic Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0013-0133 • E-ISSN: 1468-0297
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/j.1468-0297.2012.02526.x
OpenAlexW2159910240
LanguageEN
Citations received19
References cited31

Drawing upon county‐level census data for the German state of Bavaria in 1939 and 1946, we use World War II (WWII) as a natural experiment to study the effects of changes in the adult sex ratio on out of wedlock fertility. Our findings show that war‐induced shortfalls of men significantly increased the non‐marital fertility ratio in the middle of the century. Furthermore, we find that the regional magnitude of this effect varies with the county‐level share of prisoners of war (POWs) in an inverse manner. Unlike military casualties and soldiers missing in action, POWs had a sizeable positive probability of returning home from the war. It appears therefore that both current marriage market conditions and foreseeable improvements in the future marriage market prospects of women influenced fertility behaviour in the immediate aftermath of WWII

Ancient history · Census · Demographic economics · Economics · Fertility · First world war · Geography · German · Marital status · Marriage market · Political science · Population · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · World War II · Demographic Trends and Gender Preferences · Demography · Family Dynamics and Relationships · History · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving · Law