There have been significant increases in the labor supply of women in the last decade, both in developed and developing countries. Traditional views of this process interpret the increased female labor force participation as being caused by reduced fertility and increased wages for women in the labor market. This proposal suggests that all these changes can be understood as part of a single process of demographic transition, triggered by reductions in mortality. Mortality reductions have important effects on the incentives of individuals to invest in human capital and to have children. We develop a model where households composed by 2 members (husband and wife) decide on their allocation of time, on the number of children they have and on the human capital investments in each infant and adult member of the household. The project intends to use this model to investigate the impacts of mortality reductions on: fertility, female labor force participation, the gender wage-gap, and the quality of children. Finally, we plan on using a dynamic cross-region panel to test the specific predictions of the model related to female labor force participation, fertility and the wage-gap.
