IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/75372.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Religion and Fertility in East Asia: Evidence from the East Asian Social Survey

Author

Listed:
  • Bessey, Donata

Abstract

This article analyzes the effect of religious affiliation on fertility in Japan, Korea and the Republic of China (Taiwan). It adds to the sparse empirical evidence on the effects of religious affiliation on fertility in East Asia, for both Abrahamic and other religions. It uses an identity-economic model and analyzes prescriptions among the different religions to derive testable hypotheses about the effect of religions on fertility. In the empirical section, the East Asian Social Survey (EASS) and a generalized Poisson model are used to estimate the effects of different religions on fertility. In line with theoretical predictions, the empirical results suggest that the positive effect of Catholicism on fertility that has disappeared in both Europe and the US in past decades is still present in East Asia. In line with the sparse previous empirical evidence on Buddhism, it seems to have no effect on fertility.

Suggested Citation

  • Bessey, Donata, 2016. "Religion and Fertility in East Asia: Evidence from the East Asian Social Survey," MPRA Paper 75372, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:75372
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/75372/1/MPRA_paper_75372.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Evelyn Lehrer, 1996. "Religion as a determinant of marital fertility," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 9(2), pages 173-196, June.
    2. Li Zhang, 2008. "Religious affiliation, religiosity, and male and female fertility," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 18(8), pages 233-262.
    3. Tomas Frejka & Charles F. Westoff, 2008. "Religion, Religiousness and Fertility in the US and in Europe," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 24(1), pages 5-31, March.
    4. Kevin McQuillan, 2004. "When Does Religion Influence Fertility?," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 30(1), pages 25-56, March.
    5. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2000. "Economics and Identity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 715-753.
    6. Evelyn L. Lehrer, 2004. "Religion as a Determinant of Economic and Demographic Behavior in the United States," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 30(4), pages 707-726, December.
    7. Tammy Harris & Zhao Yang & James W. Hardin, 2012. "Modeling underdispersed count data with generalized Poisson regression," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 12(4), pages 736-747, December.
    8. Vegard Skirbekk & Marcin Jan Stonawski & Setsuya Fukuda & Thomas Spoorenberg & Conrad Hackett & Raya Muttarak, 2015. "Is Buddhism the low fertility religion of Asia?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 32(1), pages 1-28.
    9. Weiren Wang & Felix Famoye, 1997. "Modeling household fertility decisions with generalized Poisson regression," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 10(3), pages 273-283.
    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. Dayuan Xie & Yonghong Zhou, 2022. "Religion effects on fertility preference: evidence from China," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 39(3), pages 341-371, September.
    2. Sam Hyun Yoo & Victor Agadjanian, 2021. "The paradox of change: Religion and fertility decline in South Korea," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 44(23), pages 537-562.

    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. Barbara S. Okun, 2017. "Religiosity and Fertility: Jews in Israel," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 33(4), pages 475-507, October.
    2. Sam Hyun Yoo & Victor Agadjanian, 2021. "The paradox of change: Religion and fertility decline in South Korea," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 44(23), pages 537-562.
    3. Anna Baranowska-Rataj & Monika Mynarska & Daniele Vignoli, 2014. "A Dirty Look From The Neighbors. Does Living In A Religious Neighborhood Prevent Cohabitation?," Working Papers 71, Institute of Statistics and Demography, Warsaw School of Economics.
    4. Vegard Skirbekk & Marcin Jan Stonawski & Setsuya Fukuda & Thomas Spoorenberg & Conrad Hackett & Raya Muttarak, 2015. "Is Buddhism the low fertility religion of Asia?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 32(1), pages 1-28.
    5. Barbara S. Okun, 2013. "Fertility and marriage behavior in Israel," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 28(17), pages 457-504.
    6. Kumo, Kazuhiro & Perugini, Cristiano, 2023. "Religion, Ideology and Fertility," IZA Discussion Papers 16159, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Klaus Prettner & Holger Strulik, 2017. "It's a Sin—Contraceptive Use, Religious Beliefs, and Long-run Economic Development," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(3), pages 543-566, August.
    8. David de la Croix & Clara Delavallade, 2018. "Religions, Fertility, And Growth In Southeast Asia," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 59(2), pages 907-946, May.
    9. Karin Hoisl & Myriam Mariani, 2017. "It’s a Man’s Job: Income and the Gender Gap in Industrial Research," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(3), pages 766-790, March.
    10. Thomas Baudin, 2012. "More on Religion and Fertility: The French Connection," Working Papers hal-00993310, HAL.
    11. Pablo Brañas-Garza & Shoshana Neuman, 2007. "Parental religiosity and daughters’ fertility: the case of Catholics in southern Europe," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 5(3), pages 305-327, September.
    12. Nicholas Campisi & Hill Kulu & Júlia Mikolai & Sebastian Klüsener & Mikko Myrskylä, 2020. "A spatial perspective on the Nordic fertility decline: the role of economic and social uncertainty in fertility trends," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2020-036, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    13. Caroline Berghammer, 2009. "Religious Socialisation and Fertility: Transition to Third Birth in The Netherlands [Socialisation Religieuse et Fécondité: L’arrivée du Troisième Enfant aux Pays-Bas]," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 25(3), pages 297-324, August.
    14. Maryam Dilmaghani, 2019. "Religiosity, Secularity and Fertility in Canada," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 35(2), pages 403-428, May.
    15. Christoph Bein & Anne H. Gauthier & Monika Mynarska, 2021. "Religiosity and Fertility Intentions: Can the Gender Regime Explain Cross-Country Differences?," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 37(2), pages 443-472, April.
    16. Lehrer, Evelyn L., 2008. "The Role of Religion in Economic and Demographic Behavior in the United States: A Review of the Recent Literature," IZA Discussion Papers 3541, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. 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.
    18. Carranza, Eliana, 2012. "Islamic inheritance law, son preference and fertility behavior of Muslim couples in Indonesia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5972, The World Bank.
    19. Bertoli, Simone & Marchetta, Francesca, 2015. "Bringing It All Back Home – Return Migration and Fertility Choices," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 27-40.
    20. Alicia Adsera, 2006. "An Economic Analysis of the Gap Between Desired and Actual Fertility: The Case of Spain," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 75-95, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fertility; Religion; East Asia;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

    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:pra:mprapa:75372. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.