IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/dem/wpaper/wp-2011-018.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Urban fertility responses to local government programs: evidence from the 1923-1932 U.S

Author

Listed:
  • Jonathan F. Fox

    (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany)

  • Mikko Myrskylä

    (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany)

Abstract

During the 1920s and early 1930s, fertility in American municipalities declined overall and with large variation between areas and across time. Using data for 1923-1932 on fertility and public spending for over 50 large cities, we show that the local government programs of health education and outdoor care of poor had the unintended effect of reducing fertility. Fixed effects regressions indicate a $4 increase in per capita public health education spending or a $37 increase in poor relief reduced the TFR by 0.1. This suggests that cities spending in the 75th percentile on health education experienced a 1.95% faster fertility decline than cities spending in the 25th percentile. For poor relief the difference was 1.45%. The mechanisms may be related to increased breastfeeding, social insurance incentives or the stressing of a two child home. The results help explain differing fertility trends, and highlight how policy may unintentionally reduce fertility.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonathan F. Fox & Mikko Myrskylä, 2011. "Urban fertility responses to local government programs: evidence from the 1923-1932 U.S," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2011-018, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2011-018
    DOI: 10.4054/MPIDR-WP-2011-018
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/working/wp-2011-018.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.4054/MPIDR-WP-2011-018?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Matthias Doepke, 2004. "Accounting for Fertility Decline During the Transition to Growth," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 347-383, September.
    2. Zvi Eckstein & Pedro Mira & Kenneth I. Wolpin, 1999. "A Quantitative Analysis of Swedish Fertility Dynamics: 1751-1990," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 2(1), pages 137-165, January.
    3. Douglas E. Hyatt & William J. Milne, 1991. "Can Public Policy Affect Fertility?," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 17(1), pages 77-85, March.
    4. Price V. Fishback & Michael R. Haines & Shawn Kantor, 2007. "Births, Deaths, and New Deal Relief during the Great Depression," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(1), pages 1-14, February.
    5. Larry E. Jones & Michele Tertilt, 2006. "An Economic History of Fertility in the U.S.: 1826-1960," NBER Working Papers 12796, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Michael Haines & Avery Guest, 2008. "Fertility in New York state in the pre-civil war era," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 45(2), pages 345-361, May.
    7. Barro, Robert J & Becker, Gary S, 1989. "Fertility Choice in a Model of Economic Growth," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 481-501, March.
    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. Shcherbakova, N. V., 2019. "The role of biological and economic factors in urban population growth," R-Economy, Ural Federal University, Graduate School of Economics and Management, vol. 5(3), pages 103-114.
    2. Shcherbakova, Nadezda, 2013. "Urbanization as a way of saving our planet from overpopulation," MPRA Paper 52299, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Jonathan Fox & Mikko Myrskylä, 2015. "Urban fertility responses to local government programs: Evidence from the 1923-1932 U.S," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 32(16), pages 487-532.
    2. Larry E. Jones & Alice Schoonbroodt, 2010. "Complements Versus Substitutes And Trends In Fertility Choice In Dynastic Models," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 51(3), pages 671-699, August.
    3. Jeremy Greenwood & Nezih Guner & Guillaume Vandenbroucke, 2017. "Family Economics Writ Large," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1346-1434, December.
    4. Marla Ripoll & Juan Carlos Cordoba, 2011. "A Contribution to the Economic Theory of Fertility," 2011 Meeting Papers 1207, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    5. Oded Galor, 2012. "The demographic transition: causes and consequences," Cliometrica, Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), vol. 6(1), pages 1-28, January.
    6. Cordoba, Juan Carlos & Ripoll, Marla, 2012. "Barro-Becker with Credit Frictions," Staff General Research Papers Archive 35531, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    7. Matthias Doepke, 2005. "Child mortality and fertility decline: Does the Barro-Becker model fit the facts?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 18(2), pages 337-366, June.
    8. Strulik, Holger & Weisdorf, Jacob, 2010. "How Child Costs and Survival Shaped the Industrial Revolution and the Demographic Transition: A Theoretical Inquiry," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-442, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    9. Jeremy Greenwood & Nezih Guner & Guillaume Vandenbroucke, 2017. "Family Economics Writ Large," Working Papers wp2018_1706, CEMFI.
    10. Nguyen Thang Dao & Julio Dávila & Angela Greulich, 2021. "The education gender gap and the demographic transition in developing countries," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(2), pages 431-474, April.
    11. de Silva, Tiloka & Tenreyroa, Silvana, 2017. "Population control policies and fertility convergence," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 86158, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. Angela Luci-Greulich & Olivier Thévenon, 2013. "The Impact of Family Policies on Fertility Trends in Developed Countries," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 29(4), pages 387-416, November.
    13. David de la Croix & Matthias Doepke & Joel Mokyr, 2018. "Clans, Guilds, and Markets: Apprenticeship Institutions and Growth in the Preindustrial Economy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(1), pages 1-70.
    14. 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.
    15. Sunde, Uwe & Cervellati, Matteo, 2007. "Human Capital, Mortality and Fertility: A Unified Theory of the Economic and Demographic Transition," CEPR Discussion Papers 6384, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Mikhail Golosov & Larry E. Jones & Michèle Tertilt, 2007. "Efficiency with Endogenous Population Growth," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(4), pages 1039-1071, July.
    17. Frederic Tournemaine & Pongsak Luangaram, 2012. "R&D, human capital, fertility, and growth," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 25(3), pages 923-953, July.
    18. Doepke, Matthias, 2013. "Exploitation, Altruism, and Social Welfare: An Economic Exploration," CEPR Discussion Papers 9509, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Svitlana Maksymenko, 2006. "Fertility, Money Holdings, and Economic Growth: Evidence from Ukraine," Working Paper 296, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, revised Mar 2008.
    20. Matthias Doepke & Michèle Tertilt, 2009. "Women's Liberation: What's in It for Men?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(4), pages 1541-1591.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    USA; fertility; fertility decline; public health; social welfare;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:dem:wpaper:wp-2011-018. 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: Peter Wilhelm (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.demogr.mpg.de/ .

    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.