We analyze the e¤ects of changes in the mortality rate upon life expectancy, education, retirement age, human capital and growth in the presence of social security. We build a vintage growth, overlapping generations model in which individuals choose the time length of education and retirement age, and where unfunded social security pensions depend on workers'past contributions. Social security has a positive e¤ect on education, but pension bene…ts favor reductions in retirement age. The net e¤ect is that starting from a benchmark case, higher life expectancies give rise to lower growth rates in the presence of social security as the share of active population is reduced. In addition, higher social security contribution rates reduce the growth rate.JEL Classi…cation Numbers: O40, H55, J10

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In the last twenty years the United States has seen a positive relationship between female labor supply and total fertility rates, which differs from the pattern observed over the preceding years. We construct a general equilibrium overlapping generations model capable of generating this changing relationship between fertility and female labor supply. We argue that skilled biased technological change in recent decades has increased the skill premium and has therefore decreased the relative cost of (unskilled) child care services. The positive effect of the increase in female mean wages on fertility rates, and the inducement for labor force participation provided by the reduction in the relative cost of child care services, generated the positive relationship between fertility rates and female labor force participation in the last two decades. Copyright Springer-Verlag 2004J10, J12, Female labor supply, fertility rates, child care, skill premium,

postponement of marriage and maternity, fixed-term contracts, career planning motive, duration models,

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