In many countries, such as the United States and Denmark, there are increasing concerns that family structures are changing in ways that impact children. For example, in the United States, the share of births to unmarried women increased from 5% in 1960 to above 30% in the 1990s, despite increased access of unmarried women to abortion and birth control.

My research asks how well do shocks related to abortion, contraception, and divorce explain this and the underlying changes, such as rising unmarried pregnancy rates and declining rates of marriage? To what extent is it necessary to appeal to social norms and non-co-operative models to explain these changes?

To study such developments John Knowles and I have proposed an equilibrium model of couples making co-operative choices over sexual relations, contraception, abortion and marriage. Our calibrations to US data suggests that shocks to abortion access and divorce may play as large a role as shocks to contraception technology or the decline of "shotgun" weddings.