Fertility, Migration, and Maternal Wages: Evidence from Brazil

In this paper, I examine whether child rearing curbs women's geographic mobility. Using first-born twins as an instrument for fertility, I find that, in Brazil, an additional child reduces the migration rate by 6 percent. The effect is stronger among women with younger children: a 20 percent reduction in the migration rate. Consistent with previous studies, fertility has a negative impact on women's labor supply and wages. Finally, two-stage least squares estimates reveal that migrant women are more likely to work and earn more than nonmigrant women, suggesting that the migration-deterrent effects of fertility might be one of the explanations for the inverse fertility-income relationship.