Place Effects on Fertility: Evidence from the U.S. Military Duty-Station Assignments

Abstract

Low fertility has emerged as a defining demographic challenge globally. Even within the United States, where overall fertility has trended downward, fertility rates exhibit substantial geographic heterogeneity. These wide and persistent differences raise a question: to what extent do they reflect causal effects of place, rather than compositional sorting or other socioeconomic factors? We leverage quasi-random military duty-station assignments to study place and peer effects on fertility. Linking duty-station histories to annual fertility outcomes, dependent-status records, and marital transitions, we estimate how exposure to different local family environments affects subsequent fertility, marriage, and divorce. Our design uses commuting-zone indicators and inverse-propensity score weights to adjust for branch- and occupation-based assignment patterns. We estimate gender-specific place effects and examine marriage and divorce as related behavioral margins, providing causal evidence on whether local norms, family structures, and community environments shape fertility decisions.