Research Summary:Shelly Lundberg is Castor Professor of Economics at the University of Washington and Director of the Center for Research on Families. She is also a Senior Faculty Affiliate of the new West Coast Poverty Center, a Research Fellow of the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn, and Adjunct Professor of Economics at the University of Bergen, Norway. Her research is focused in labor and family economics and includes both theoretical modeling (of discrimination and inequality and of family decision-making) and empirical analysis (of fertility, labor supply, wage determination, and intra-household allocation of resources).
Two current projects focus on parenting: an NICHD-funded study of the effects of child gender on parental behavior, and an examination of child agency in U.S. households with Jennifer Romich, also funded by NICHD. Previous research has found that fathers spend more time with sons than with daughters, but Lundberg and several colleagues find, using a number of data sources, that child gender has significant effects on a broad range of parental behavior—including work hours, relationship stability and satisfaction, and substance abuse. In general, fathers’ are more involved with sons from a very early age, and this influences their time use and their investments in family life. Mothers, in contrast, do not behave very differently towards sons and daughters. Lundberg and Romich examine the decision-making of children aged 10 to 14 and find that the pace at which children acquire autonomy in their day-to-day actions depends both on parental goals and resources, and on their own personalities. The results suggest a tug-of-war between the parents’ desire to restrict and mold the child’s behavior and the child’s willingness to assert her independence.
Recent Publications:- Romich, J.; Lundberg, S.; Tsang, K. P., (Forthcoming), Independence Giving or Autonomy Taking? Childhood Predictors of Decision-Making Patterns Between Youth Adolescents and Parents, Journal of Research on Adolescence.
- Lundberg, S.; Romich, J.; Tsang, K. P., (2009), Decision-making by Children, Review of Economics of the Household, 7, 1-30.
- Lundberg, S., (2008), Gender and Household Decisionmaking, Frontiers in Gender Economics, Bettio, F., Routledge.
- Lundberg, S.; Choi, H.-j.; Joesch, J., (2008), Sons, Daughters, Wives, and the Labour Market Outcomes of West German Men, Labour Economics, 15: 5, 795-811.
- Lundberg, S.; Pollak, R., (2008), Family decision making, The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, Durlauf, S. N.; Blume, L. E., Palgrave Macmillan.
- Lundberg, S.; McLanahan, S.; Rose, E., (2007), Child Gender and Father Involvement in Fragile Families, Demography, 44: 1, 79-92.
- Lundberg, S.; Pollak, R. A., (2007), The American Family and Family Economics, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 21: 2, 3.
- Lundberg, S.; Pollak, R. A., (2007), Symposia - Household Economics - "The American Family and Family Economics", The journal of economic perspectives : a journal of the American Economic Association., 21: 2, 3.
- Lundberg, S.; Pollak, R. A.; National Bureau of Economic, R., (2007), The American Family and Family Economics, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, Mass..
- Lundberg, S.; Romich, J.; Tsang, K. P.; Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der, A., (2007), Decision-making by children, IZA, Bonn, Germany.
- Lundberg, S.; Startz, R., (2007), Information and Racial Exclusion, Journal of Population Economics, 20: 3, 621.
- Lundberg, S., (2005), Men and Islands: Dealing with the Family in Empirical Labor Economics, Labour Economics, 12: 4, 591-612.
- Lundberg, S., (2005), Sons, Daughters, and Parental Behavior, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 21: 3, 340-356.
- Lundberg, S., (2005), Childbearing Decisions: Can Attitude Measures Play a Role in Causal Modeling?, The New Population Problem: Why Families in Developed Countries Are Shrinking and What It Means, Booth, A.; Crouter, N.; Erlbaum, L., 93-98.
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Ph.D. 1981, Northwestern University. Labor economics, inequality and discrimination, economics of the family, public policy.
