IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/8984.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Private and Social Incentives for Fertility: Israeli Puzzles

Author

Listed:
  • Charles F. Manski
  • Joram Mayshar

Abstract

Whereas most of the world has experienced decreasing fertility during the past half century, Israel has experienced a puzzling mix of trends. Completed fertility has decreased sharply in some ethnic-religious groups (Mizrahi Jews and non-Bedouin Arabs) and increased moderately in other groups (non-ultra-orthodox Ashkenazi and Israeli-born Jews). In a phenomenon that can only be described as a reverse fertility transition, fertility has increased substantially (from about 3 to 6 children per women) among ultra-orthodox Ashkenazi and Israeli-born Jews. This paper explores how private and social incentives for fertility may have combined to produce the complex pattern of fertility in Israel. Theoretical analysis of the social dynamics of fertility shows that this pattern could have been generated by the joint effects of (a) private preferences for childbearing, (b) preferences for conformity to group fertility norms, and (c) the major child-allowance program introduced by the Israeli government in the 1970s. Econometric analysis of fertility decisions shows that fundamental identification problems make it difficult to infer the actual Israeli fertility process from data on completed fertility. Hence we are able to conjecture meaningfully on what may have happened, but we cannot definitively resolve the Israeli fertility puzzles.

Suggested Citation

  • Charles F. Manski & Joram Mayshar, 2002. "Private and Social Incentives for Fertility: Israeli Puzzles," NBER Working Papers 8984, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:8984
    Note: CH
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w8984.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Moffitt, Robert, 1992. "Incentive Effects of the U.S. Welfare System: A Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(1), pages 1-61, March.
    2. Hotz, V Joseph & Miller, Robert A, 1988. "An Empirical Analysis of Life Cycle Fertility and Female Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(1), pages 91-118, January.
    3. Charles F. Manski, 2000. "Economic Analysis of Social Interactions," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 115-136, Summer.
    4. Walker, James R, 1995. "The Effect of Public Policies on Recent Swedish Fertility Behavior," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 8(3), pages 223-251, August.
    5. Eli Berman, 2000. "Sect, Subsidy, and Sacrifice: An Economist's View of Ultra-Orthodox Jews," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 905-953.
    6. Boyer, George R, 1989. "Malthus Was Right after All: Poor Relief and Birth Rates in Southeastern England," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(1), pages 93-114, February.
    7. William A. Brock & Steven N. Durlauf, 2001. "Discrete Choice with Social Interactions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 68(2), pages 235-260.
    8. 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.
    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. Iyer, Sriya & Velu, Chander, 2006. "Real options and demographic decisions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 39-58, June.
    2. Iyer, S. & Weeks, M., 2009. "Social Interactions, Ethnicity and Fertility in Kenya," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0903, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    3. Peng Yu, 2006. "Higher Education, the Bane of Fertility? An investigation with the HILDA Survey," CEPR Discussion Papers 512, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    4. Melvyn Weeks & Sriya Iyer, 2004. "Multiple social interactions and reproductive externalities: An investigation of fertility behaviour in Kenya," Econometric Society 2004 Latin American Meetings 143, Econometric Society.
    5. Miles S. Kimball & Colter M. Mitchell & Arland D. Thornton & Linda C. Young-Demarco, 2009. "Empirics on the Origins of Preferences: The Case of College Major and Religiosity," NBER Working Papers 15182, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Joshua D. Angrist & Victor Lavy & Analia Schlosser, 2005. "New Evidence on the Causal Link Between the Quantity and Quality of Children," NBER Working Papers 11835, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    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. Dora L. Costa & Matthew E. Kahn, 2003. "Cowards and Heroes: Group Loyalty in the American Civil War," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(2), pages 519-548.
    2. Steven N. Durlauf & Yannis M. Ioannides, 2010. "Social Interactions," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 451-478, September.
    3. Yann Bramoullé & Habiba Djebbari & Bernard Fortin, 2020. "Peer Effects in Networks: A Survey," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 603-629, August.
    4. Armin Falk & Urs Fischbacher & Simon G�chter, "undated". "Living in Two Neighborhoods - Social Interactions in the Lab," IEW - Working Papers 150, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    5. Toshi H. Arimura & Hajime Katayama & Mari Sakudo, 2016. "Do Social Norms Matter to Energy-Saving Behavior? Endogenous Social and Correlated Effects," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(3), pages 525-553.
    6. Fortin, Bernard & Lacroix, Guy & Villeval, Marie-Claire, 2007. "Tax evasion and social interactions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(11-12), pages 2089-2112, December.
    7. Bonan, Jacopo & Battiston, Pietro & Bleck, Jaimie & LeMay-Boucher, Philippe & Pareglio, Stefano & Sarr, Bassirou & Tavoni, Massimo, 2021. "Social interaction and technology adoption: Experimental evidence from improved cookstoves in Mali," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    8. Goodstein, Ryan & Hanouna, Paul & Ramirez, Carlos D. & Stahel, Christof W., 2017. "Contagion effects in strategic mortgage defaults," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 50-60.
    9. Anna K. Edenbrandt & Christian Gamborg & Bo Jellesmark Thorsen, 2020. "Observational learning in food choices: The effect of product familiarity and closeness of peers," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(3), pages 482-498, June.
    10. Blume,L.E. & Durlauf,S.N., 2005. "Identifying social interactions : a review," Working papers 12, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
    11. Ana Balsa & Carlos Díaz, 2018. "Social interactions in health behaviors and conditions," Documentos de Trabajo/Working Papers 1802, Facultad de Ciencias Empresariales y Economia. Universidad de Montevideo..
    12. Hsieh, Hsu-Sheng, 2020. "Transport policy evaluation based on elasticity analysis with social interactions," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 273-296.
    13. Weili Ding & Steven F. Lehrer, 2007. "Do Peers Affect Student Achievement in China's Secondary Schools?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(2), pages 300-312, May.
    14. Katarzyna Ostasiewicz & Michal H. Tyc & Piotr Goliczewski & Piotr Magnuszewski & Andrzej Radosz & Jan Sendzimir, 2006. "Integrating economic and psychological insights in binary choice models with social interactions," Papers physics/0609170, arXiv.org.
    15. Jason M. Fletcher, 2010. "Social interactions and smoking: evidence using multiple student cohorts, instrumental variables, and school fixed effects," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(4), pages 466-484, April.
    16. Laurent Davezies & Xavier D'Haultfoeuille & Denis Fougère, 2009. "Identification of peer effects using group size variation," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 12(3), pages 397-413, November.
    17. Galbiati, Roberto & Zanella, Giulio, 2012. "The tax evasion social multiplier: Evidence from Italy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(5), pages 485-494.
    18. Georg D. Blind & Stefania Lottanti von Mandach, 2021. "Of pride and prejudice: agent learning under sticky and persistent stereotype," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 16(2), pages 381-410, April.
    19. Tolciu, Andreia, 2008. "Is unemployment a consequence of social interactions? Seeking for a common research framework for economists and other social scientists," HWWI Research Papers 1-15, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI).
    20. Angrist, Joshua D., 2014. "The perils of peer effects," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 98-108.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue

    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:nbr:nberwo:8984. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.