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Fertility Theories: Can They Explain the Negative Fertility-Income Relationship?

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Author Info
Larry E. Jones
Alice Schoonbroodt
Michèle Tertilt

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Abstract

In this chapter we revisit the relationship between income and fertility. There is overwhelming empirical evidence that fertility is negatively related to income in most countries at most times. Several theories have been proposed in the literature to explain this somewhat puzzling fact. The most common one is based on the opportunity cost of time being higher for individuals with higher earnings. Alternatively, people might differ in their desire to procreate and accordingly some people invest more in children and less in market-specific human capital and thus have lower earnings. We revisit these and other possible explanations. We find that these theories are not as robust as is commonly believed. That is, several special assumptions are needed to generate the negative relationship. Not all assumptions are equally plausible. Such findings will be useful to distinguish alternative theories. We conclude that further research along these lines is needed.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 14266.

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Date of creation: Aug 2008
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14266

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D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation
J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Samuel H. Preston & Caroline Sten Hartnett, 2008. "The Future of American Fertility," NBER Working Papers 14498, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Francesco C.Billari & Vincenzo Galasso, 2008. "What Explains fertility? Evidence from Italian pension reforms," Working Papers 343, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Philip Oreopoulos & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2009. "How large are returns to schooling? Hint: Money isn't everything," NBER Working Papers 15339, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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