Despite having similar economies and political systems, high-income nations show persistent diversity. In this pioneering work, Fred C. Pampel looks at fertility, suicide, and homicide rates in eighteen high-income nations to show how they are affected by institutional structures. European nations, for example, offer universal public benefits for men and women who are unable to work and have policies to ease the burdens of working mothers. The United States, in contrast, does not. This study demonstrates how public policy differences such as these affect childbearing among working women,...