David Blau is Professor of Economics at Ohio State University. He is a labor and population economist with research interests in aging and children. Blau’s aging research focuses on the dynamics of employment behavior of individuals and couples at older ages. His recent research examines links between saving and retirement decisions; rigidities in the labor market for older workers; explaining long run trends in the timing of retirement; and a behavioral economics approach to understanding the impact of changes in Social Security policy on labor force exit. Blau has studied numerous aspects of child care, including the impact of the cost of child care on women’s labor force participation, mode of care, and fertility; the determinants and consequences of the quality of child care; and the impact of child care subsidies on employment and welfare participation. His book, The Child Care Problem: An Economic Analysis, was published by the Russell Sage Foundation in 2001. His current research on children analyzes the impact of family structure and parental time allocation on child outcomes. Blau is a past co-editor of the Journal of Human Resources, a past deputy editor of Demography, and a past member of the NIH Social Sciences and Population Study Section. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1980.

He joined IZA as a Research Fellow in November 2003.