IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eecrev/v63y2013icp273-289.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Fertility choice, mortality expectations, and interdependent preferences—An empirical analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Canning, David
  • Günther, Isabel
  • Linnemayr, Sebastian
  • Bloom, David

Abstract

We investigate the empirical relationship between child mortality and fertility across 46 low and middle income countries. Specifically, we model the effect of mortality expectations and interdependent fertility preferences on fertility. The direct marginal effect of mortality expectations on fertility is larger than zero but less than unity. This implies that a decrease in mortality rates leads to a decrease in children born but to an increase in the number of surviving children and hence the rate of population growth. Taking into account interdependent fertility preferences, whereby an individual's fertility choice affects the fertility decisions of others, the marginal effect of mortality expectations on fertility becomes one. Hence, if we allow for both mortality expectations and the amplifying effect of interdependent fertility preferences, a decrease in child mortality has no net effect on the rate of population growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Canning, David & Günther, Isabel & Linnemayr, Sebastian & Bloom, David, 2013. "Fertility choice, mortality expectations, and interdependent preferences—An empirical analysis," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 273-289.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:63:y:2013:i:c:p:273-289
    DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2013.07.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292113000913
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2013.07.005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Frankel, Jeffrey A & Froot, Kenneth A, 1987. "Using Survey Data to Test Standard Propositions Regarding Exchange Rate Expectations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(1), pages 133-153, March.
    2. James Trussell & Randall Olsen, 1983. "Evaluation of the Olsen Technique For Estimating the Fertility Response to Child Mortality," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 20(3), pages 391-405, August.
    3. Edward L. Glaeser & Bruce I. Sacerdote & Jose A. Scheinkman, 2003. "The Social Multiplier," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(2-3), pages 345-353, 04/05.
    4. Easterlin, Richard A. (ed.), 1987. "Population and Economic Change in Developing Countries," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226180274, November.
    5. Becker, Gary S, 1981. "Altruism in the Family and Selfishness in the Market Place," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 48(189), pages 1-15, February.
    6. Gary S. Becker & Kevin M. Murphy & Robert Tamura, 1994. "Human Capital, Fertility, and Economic Growth," NBER Chapters, in: Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education, Third Edition, pages 323-350, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Karen Mason, 1997. "Explaining fertility transitions," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 34(4), pages 443-454, November.
    8. David E. Sahn & David Stifel, 2003. "Exploring Alternative Measures of Welfare in the Absence of Expenditure Data," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 49(4), pages 463-489, December.
    9. David N. Weil & Oded Galor, 1999. "From Malthusian Stagnation to Modern Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 150-154, May.
    10. Gary S. Becker & Robert J. Barro, 1988. "A Reformulation of the Economic Theory of Fertility," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 103(1), pages 1-25.
    11. Charles F. Manski, 1993. "Identification of Endogenous Social Effects: The Reflection Problem," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(3), pages 531-542.
    12. Kohler, Hans-Peter, 2001. "Fertility and Social Interaction: An Economic Perspective," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199244591.
    13. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson, 2007. "Disease and Development: The Effect of Life Expectancy on Economic Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(6), pages 925-985, December.
    14. Edward L. Glaeser & Jose Scheinkman, 2000. "Non-Market Interactions," NBER Working Papers 8053, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Munshi, Kaivan & Myaux, Jacques, 2006. "Social norms and the fertility transition," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 1-38, June.
    16. David Heer & Dean Smith, 1968. "Mortality level, desired family size, and population increase," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 5(1), pages 104-121, March.
    17. Schultz, T Paul, 1978. "Fertility and Child Mortality over the Life Cycle: Aggregate and Individual Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(2), pages 208-215, May.
    18. Deon Filmer & Lant Pritchett, 2001. "Estimating Wealth Effects Without Expenditure Data—Or Tears: An Application To Educational Enrollments In States Of India," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 38(1), pages 115-132, February.
    19. Hongyi Li & G. S. Maddala, 1999. "Bootstrap Variance Estimation Of Nonlinear Functions Of Parameters: An Application To Long-Run Elasticities Of Energy Demand," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(4), pages 728-733, November.
    20. Maglad, Nour Eldin, 1994. "Fertility in Rural Sudan: The Effect of Landholding and Child Mortality," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(4), pages 761-772, July.
    21. Thomas LeGrand & Todd Koppenhaver & Nathalie Mondain & Sara Randall, 2003. "Reassessing the Insurance Effect: A Qualitative Analysis of Fertility Behavior in Senegal and Zimbabwe," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 29(3), pages 375-403, September.
    22. Kalemli-Ozcan, Sebnem, 2003. "A stochastic model of mortality, fertility, and human capital investment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 103-118, February.
    23. Ben-Porath, Yoram, 1976. "Fertility Response to Child Mortality: Micro Data from Israel," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(4), pages 163-178, August.
    24. Randall Olsen, 1980. "Estimating the effect of child mortality on the number of births," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 17(4), pages 429-443, November.
    25. David N. Weil & Oded Galor, 2000. "Population, Technology, and Growth: From Malthusian Stagnation to the Demographic Transition and Beyond," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 806-828, September.
    26. repec:ucp:bknber:9780226740867 is not listed on IDEAS
    27. Alberto Palloni & Hantamala Rafalimanana, 1999. "The effects of infant mortality on fertility revisited: new evidence from latin america," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 36(1), pages 41-58, February.
    28. Graham, Bryan S. & Hahn, Jinyong, 2005. "Identification and estimation of the linear-in-means model of social interactions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 1-6, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bénédicte Apouey & Gabriel Picone, 2014. "Social Interactions And Malaria Preventive Behaviors In Sub‐Saharan Africa," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(9), pages 994-1012, September.
    2. Portner, Claus C., 2023. "How Is Fertility Behavior in Africa Different?," SocArXiv jf9um, Center for Open Science.
    3. Juan Cordoba & Marla Ripoll & Xiying Liu, 2019. "Accounting for the International Quantity-Quality Trade-off," 2019 Meeting Papers 156, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    4. Karra, Mahesh & Wilde, Joshua, 2023. "Economic Foundations of Contraceptive Transitions: Theories and a Review of the Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 15889, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Jan Priebe, 2020. "Quasi-experimental evidence for the causal link between fertility and subjective well-being," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(3), pages 839-882, July.
    6. Natallia Gray & Gabriel Picone, 2018. "Evidence of Large-Scale Social Interactions in Mammography in the United States," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 46(4), pages 441-457, December.
    7. Bhattacharya, Joydeep & Chakraborty, Shankha & Kim, Minkyong, 2023. "Child survival and contraception choice: Theory and evidence," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    8. Bhattacharya, Joydeep & Chakraborty, Shankha, 2014. "Contraception and the fertility transition," ISU General Staff Papers 201410220700001028, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    9. Isabel Günther & Kenneth Harttgen, 2016. "Desired Fertility and Number of Children Born Across Time and Space," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 53(1), pages 55-83, February.
    10. Büttner, Nicolas & Grimm, Michael & Günther, Isabel & Harttgen, Kenneth & Klasen, Stephan, 2022. "The fertility transition in Sub-Saharan Africa: The role of structural change," Passauer Diskussionspapiere, Volkswirtschaftliche Reihe V-90-22, University of Passau, Faculty of Business and Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. David E. Bloom & David Canning & Isabel Günther & Sebastian Linnemayr, 2008. "Social Interactions and Fertility in Developing Countries," PGDA Working Papers 3408, Program on the Global Demography of Aging.
    2. Kalemli-Ozcan, Sebnem, 2002. "Does the Mortality Decline Promote Economic Growth?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 7(4), pages 411-439, December.
    3. Luis Angeles, 2010. "Demographic transitions: analyzing the effects of mortality on fertility," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 23(1), pages 99-120, January.
    4. Kalemli-Ozcan, Sebnem, 2003. "A stochastic model of mortality, fertility, and human capital investment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 103-118, February.
    5. Rodrigo R. Soares, 2005. "Mortality Reductions, Educational Attainment, and Fertility Choice," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 580-601, June.
    6. Schultz, T. Paul, 2010. "Population and Health Policies," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4785-4881, Elsevier.
    7. Tiloka de Silva & Silvana Tenreyro, 2017. "The Large Fall in Global Fertility: A Quantitative Model," Discussion Papers 1718, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    8. Larry E. Jones & Alice Schoonbroodt & Michèle Tertilt, 2010. "Fertility Theories: Can They Explain the Negative Fertility-Income Relationship?," NBER Chapters, in: Demography and the Economy, pages 43-100, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Luciano Fanti & Luca Gori, 2014. "Endogenous fertility, endogenous lifetime and economic growth: the role of child policies," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 27(2), pages 529-564, April.
    10. Daishin Yasui, 2012. "Adult Longevity and Growth Takeoff," Discussion Papers 1218, Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University.
    11. Olivia Bertelli, 2015. "The more the merrier? Adjusting fertility to weather shocks," Working Papers halshs-01226421, HAL.
    12. Bénédicte Apouey & Gabriel Picone, 2014. "Social Interactions And Malaria Preventive Behaviors In Sub‐Saharan Africa," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(9), pages 994-1012, September.
    13. Dierk Herzer & Holger Strulik & Sebastian Vollmer, 2012. "The long-run determinants of fertility: one century of demographic change 1900–1999," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 357-385, December.
    14. Tamotsu Nakamura, 2018. "Solow meets Stone–Geary: Technological progress and the demographic transition," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(4), pages 768-790, November.
    15. Claude Diebolt & Audrey-Rose Menard & Faustine Perrin, 2016. "Behind the Fertility-Education Nexus: What Triggered the French Development Process?," Working Papers 03-16, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC).
    16. Fernández-Villaverde, Jesús & Delventhal, Matthew J. & Guner, Nezih, 2021. "Demographic Transitions Across Time and Space," CEPR Discussion Papers 16708, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Chinhui Juhn & Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan & Belgi Turan, 2013. "HIV and fertility in Africa: first evidence from population-based surveys," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(3), pages 835-853, July.
    18. Marla Ripoll & Juan Carlos Cordoba, 2011. "A Contribution to the Economic Theory of Fertility," 2011 Meeting Papers 1207, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    19. Juan Carlos Córdoba & Marla Ripoll, 2016. "Intergenerational Transfers and the Fertility–Income Relationship," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(593), pages 949-977, June.
    20. Sonia Bhalotra & Arthur van Soest, 2004. "Birth Spacing and Neonatal Mortality in India: Dynamics, Frailty and Fecundity," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 04/567, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Mortality; Fertility; Social spillovers; Demographic transition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:63:y:2013:i:c:p:273-289. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eer .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.