IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/joprea/v34y2017i2d10.1007_s12546-017-9187-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Low fertility in Malaysia: Can it be explained?

Author

Listed:
  • Chor Foon Tang

    (Universiti Sains Malaysia)

  • Nai-Peng Tey

    (University of Malaya)

Abstract

This study assesses the determinants of the fertility rate in Malaysia using the combined tests for cointegration and generalised variance decomposition analysis of time series data for the period 1980–2012. We find that the fertility rate is cointegrated with its determinants, i.e. female employment, female education, medical quality and per capita income. Consistent with findings from cross-sectional surveys and fertility theories, fertility in Malaysia has an inverse relationship with female employment, female education and medical quality. Additionally, we also find an inverted U-shape relationship between fertility and per capita income. Our study reaffirms that socio-economic determinants play a significant role in explaining the transition of fertility in Malaysia over the short-run and long-run.

Suggested Citation

  • Chor Foon Tang & Nai-Peng Tey, 2017. "Low fertility in Malaysia: Can it be explained?," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 101-118, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:joprea:v:34:y:2017:i:2:d:10.1007_s12546-017-9187-2
    DOI: 10.1007/s12546-017-9187-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12546-017-9187-2
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s12546-017-9187-2?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. Park, Joon Y, 1992. "Canonical Cointegrating Regressions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(1), pages 119-143, January.
    2. Peter C. B. Phillips & Bruce E. Hansen, 1990. "Statistical Inference in Instrumental Variables Regression with I(1) Processes," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 57(1), pages 99-125.
    3. Gary S. Becker & H. Gregg Lewis, 1974. "Interaction between Quantity and Quality of Children," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of the Family: Marriage, Children, and Human Capital, pages 81-90, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Dahan, Momi & Tsiddon, Daniel, 1998. "Demographic Transition, Income Distribution, and Economic Growth," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 29-52, March.
    5. Fumitaka Furuoka, 2009. "Looking for a J-shaped development-fertility relationship: Do advances in development really reverse fertility declines?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 29(4), pages 3067-3074.
    6. Kremers, Jeroen J M & Ericsson, Neil R & Dolado, Juan J, 1992. "The Power of Cointegration Tests," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 54(3), pages 325-348, August.
    7. Audrey K.L. Siah & Grace H.Y. Lee, 2015. "Female labour force participation, infant mortality and fertility in Malaysia," Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(4), pages 613-629, October.
    8. Junsoo Lee & Mark C. Strazicich, 2013. "Minimum LM unit root test with one structural break," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(4), pages 2483-2492.
    9. Tabata, Ken, 2003. "Inverted U-shaped fertility dynamics, the poverty trap and growth," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 241-248, November.
    10. Birdsall, Nancy, 1988. "Economic approaches to population growth," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Hollis Chenery & T.N. Srinivasan (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 12, pages 477-542, Elsevier.
    11. Sen, Amit, 2003. "On Unit-Root Tests When the Alternative Is a Trend-Break Stationary Process," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 21(1), pages 174-184, January.
    12. Robert McNown & Cristobal Ridao-Cano, 2005. "A time series model of fertility and female labour supply in the UK," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(5), pages 521-532.
    13. Thirunaukarasu Subramaniam & Nanthakumar Loganathan & Evelyn S. Devadason, 2018. "Determinants Of Female Fertility In Asean-5: Empirical Evidence From Bounds Cointegration Test," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 63(03), pages 593-618, June.
    14. Galor, Oded & Weil, David N, 1996. "The Gender Gap, Fertility, and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(3), pages 374-387, June.
    15. An, Chong-Bum & Jeon, Seung-Hoon, 2006. "Demographic change and economic growth: An inverted-U shape relationship," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 92(3), pages 447-454, September.
    16. Timothy W. Guinnane, 2011. "The Historical Fertility Transition: A Guide for Economists," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(3), pages 589-614, September.
    17. Stock, James H & Watson, Mark W, 1993. "A Simple Estimator of Cointegrating Vectors in Higher Order Integrated Systems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(4), pages 783-820, July.
    18. M. Hashem Pesaran & Yongcheol Shin & Richard J. Smith, 2001. "Bounds testing approaches to the analysis of level relationships," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(3), pages 289-326.
    19. Chor Foon Tang, 2009. "An Examination of the Government Spending and Economic Growth Nexus for Malaysia Using the Leveraged Bootstrap Simulation Approach," Global Economic Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(2), pages 215-227.
    20. Becker, Gary S, 1992. "Fertility and the Economy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 5(3), pages 185-201, August.
    21. World Bank, 2015. "World Development Indicators 2015," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 21634, December.
    22. Rasul, Imran, 2008. "Household bargaining over fertility: Theory and evidence from Malaysia," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 215-241, June.
    23. Paresh Kumar Narayan, 2006. "Determinants of Female Fertility in Taiwan, 1966–2001: Empirical Evidence from Cointegration and Variance Decomposition Analysis," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 20(4), pages 393-407, December.
    24. Junsoo Lee & Mark C. Strazicich, 2003. "Minimum Lagrange Multiplier Unit Root Test with Two Structural Breaks," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 1082-1089, November.
    25. Allan W. Gregory & Alfred A. Haug & Nicoletta Lomuto, 2004. "Mixed signals among tests for cointegration," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(1), pages 89-98.
    26. Hanushek, Eric A, 1992. "The Trade-Off between Child Quantity and Quality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(1), pages 84-117, February.
    27. Engle, Robert & Granger, Clive, 2015. "Co-integration and error correction: Representation, estimation, and testing," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 39(3), pages 106-135.
    28. Christian Bayer & Christoph Hanck, 2013. "Combining non-cointegration tests," Journal of Time Series Analysis, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(1), pages 83-95, January.
    29. Abul Masih & Rumi Masih, 2000. "The dynamics of fertility, family planning and female education in a developing economy," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(12), pages 1617-1627.
    30. Paresh Kumar Narayan & Russell Smyth, 2005. "Structural Breaks And Unit Roots In Australian Macroeconomic Time Series," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(4), pages 421-437, December.
    31. Paresh Kumar Narayan & Xiujian Peng, 2006. "An Econometric Analysis of the Determinants of Fertility for China, 1952-2000," Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(2), pages 165-183.
    32. Pesaran, H. Hashem & Shin, Yongcheol, 1998. "Generalized impulse response analysis in linear multivariate models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 17-29, January.
    33. Graham Elliott & Michael Jansson & Elena Pesavento, 2005. "Optimal Power for Testing Potential Cointegrating Vectors With Known Parameters for Nonstationarity," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 23, pages 34-48, January.
    34. Morand, Olivier F, 1999. "Endogenous Fertility, Income Distribution, and Growth," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 4(3), pages 331-349, September.
    35. Ronald Lee & Andrew Mason, 2010. "Fertility, Human Capital, and Economic Growth over the Demographic Transition [Fécondité, capital humain et croissance économique au cours de la transition démographique]," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 26(2), pages 159-182, May.
    36. Peter Boswijk, H., 1994. "Testing for an unstable root in conditional and structural error correction models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 37-60, July.
    37. Gary S. Becker, 1960. "An Economic Analysis of Fertility," NBER Chapters, in: Demographic and Economic Change in Developed Countries, pages 209-240, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    38. MacKinnon, James G, 1996. "Numerical Distribution Functions for Unit Root and Cointegration Tests," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(6), pages 601-618, Nov.-Dec..
    39. Johansen, Soren, 1988. "Statistical analysis of cointegration vectors," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 12(2-3), pages 231-254.
    40. Nelson, Charles R. & Plosser, Charles I., 1982. "Trends and random walks in macroeconmic time series : Some evidence and implications," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 139-162.
    41. Schmidt, Peter & Phillips, C B Peter, 1992. "LM Tests for a Unit Root in the Presence of Deterministic Trends," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 54(3), pages 257-287, August.
    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. Idris, Asma Rashidah & Habibullah, Muzafar & Haji Din, Badariah, 2018. "Does Financial Development Contribute to Fertility Decline in Malaysia? An Empirical Investigation," Jurnal Ekonomi Malaysia, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, vol. 52(1), pages 191-203.

    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. Chor Foon Tang and Eu Chye Tan, 2012. "Electricity Consumption and Economic Growth in Portugal: Evidence from a Multivariate Framework Analysis," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 4).
    2. Chor Foon Tang & Ilhan Ozturk, 2017. "Can Inflation be Claimed as a Monetary Phenomenon? The Malaysian Experience," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 7(3), pages 453-460.
    3. Sakiru Adebola Solarin, 2017. "Disaggregated military expenditure and the debt level in Nigeria," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 51(4), pages 1687-1705, July.
    4. Angeliki N. Menegaki, 2019. "The ARDL Method in the Energy-Growth Nexus Field; Best Implementation Strategies," Economies, MDPI, vol. 7(4), pages 1-16, October.
    5. Goh, Soo Khoon & McNown, Robert, 2015. "Examining the exchange rate regime–monetary policy autonomy nexus: Evidence from Malaysia," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 292-303.
    6. Sugra Humbatova & Afag Huseyn & Natig Gadim-Oglu Hajiyev, 2023. "Impact of Oil Factor on Investment: The Case of Azerbaijan," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 13(2), pages 129-148, March.
    7. Mamon Adam Maarof & Dildar Haydar Ahmed & Ahmed Samour, 2023. "Fiscal Policy, Oil Price, Foreign Direct Investment, and Renewable Energy—A Path to Sustainable Development in South Africa," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-16, June.
    8. Awaworyi Churchill, Sefa & Inekwe, John & Ivanovski, Kris & Smyth, Russell, 2019. "Dynamics of oil price, precious metal prices and the exchange rate in the long-run," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    9. Tursoy, Turgut & Faisal, Faisal & Berk, Niyazi & Shahbaz, Muhammad, 2018. "How do Stock Prices and Metal Prices Contribute to Economic Activity in Turkey? The Importance of Linear and Non-linear ARDL," MPRA Paper 88899, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Awad Atif & Yussof Ishak, 2017. "Factors Affecting Fertility – New Evidence from Malaysia," Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series, Sciendo, vol. 36(36), pages 7-20, June.
    11. Balsalobre-Lorente, Daniel & Bekun, Festus Victor & Etokakpan, Mfonobong Udom & Driha, Oana M., 2019. "A road to enhancements in natural gas use in Iran: A multivariate modelling approach," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    12. Tursoy, Turgut & Faisal, Faisal, 2018. "The impact of gold and crude oil prices on stock market in Turkey: Empirical evidences from ARDL bounds test and combined cointegration," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 49-54.
    13. Mohammed Abumunshar & Mehmet Aga & Ahmed Samour, 2020. "Oil Price, Energy Consumption, and CO 2 Emissions in Turkey. New Evidence from a Bootstrap ARDL Test," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-15, October.
    14. Brittle, Shane, 2009. "Ricardian Equivalence and the Efficacy of Fiscal Policy in Australia," Economics Working Papers wp09-10, School of Economics, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
    15. Ansgar Belke & Robert Czudaj, 2010. "Is Euro Area Money Demand (Still) Stable? Cointegrated VAR Versus Single Equation Techniques," Applied Economics Quarterly (formerly: Konjunkturpolitik), Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 56(4), pages 285-315.
    16. G. Everaert, 2007. "Estimating Long-Run Relationships between Observed Integrated Variables by Unobserved Component Methods," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 07/452, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    17. Xia, Wanjun & Murshed, Muntasir & Khan, Zeeshan & Chen, Zhenling & Ferraz, Diogo, 2022. "Exploring the nexus between fiscal decentralization and energy poverty for China: Does country risk matter for energy poverty reduction?," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    18. 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.
    19. Ahmed Samour & Omar Ikbal Tawfik & Magdalena Radulescu & Cristina Florentina Baldan, 2023. "Do Oil Price, Renewable Energy, and Financial Development Matter for Environmental Quality in Oman? Novel Insights from Augmented ARDL Approach," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(12), pages 1-14, June.
    20. Muntasir Murshed & Mohamed Elheddad & Rizwan Ahmed & Mohga Bassim & Ei Thuzar Than, 2022. "Foreign Direct Investments, Renewable Electricity Output, and Ecological Footprints: Do Financial Globalization Facilitate Renewable Energy Transition and Environmental Welfare in Bangladesh?," Asia-Pacific Financial Markets, Springer;Japanese Association of Financial Economics and Engineering, vol. 29(1), pages 33-78, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cointegration; Fertility; Medical quality; Inverted U-shape relationship; Malaysia;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models

    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:spr:joprea:v:34:y:2017:i:2:d:10.1007_s12546-017-9187-2. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.