IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eca/wpaper/2013-367474.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Fertility in Sub-Saharan Africa: the Role of Inheritance

Author

Listed:
  • Sébastien Fontenay
  • Paula Eugenia Gobbi
  • Marc Goñi

Abstract

Fertility in Sub-Saharan Africa is the highest in the world and it should continue boosting population growth for decades to come. In this paper,we showcase a new driver of fertility decisions that has been largely overlooked by demographers and economists: inheritance rules. In particular,we demonstrate that impartible inheritance (i.e. transmission of the deceased's property to a single heir) does not incentivize households to limittheir number of children. Our main empirical strategy links data from the past on deep-rooted inheritance customs for more than 800 ethnic groupswith modern demographic surveys covering 24 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Our spatial Regression Discontinuity Design exploiting ancestralborders reveals that belonging to an ethnic group with impartible inheritance customs increases fertility by 0.85 children per woman. We alsoestablish, both theoretically and empirically, that the fertility differences across inheritance rules are larger in lands that are less labor intensive.

Suggested Citation

  • Sébastien Fontenay & Paula Eugenia Gobbi & Marc Goñi, 2024. "Fertility in Sub-Saharan Africa: the Role of Inheritance," Working Papers ECARES 2024-01, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    • Handle: RePEc:eca:wpaper:2013/367474
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/367474/3/2024-01-GOBBI_FONTENAY_GONI-fertility.pdf
    File Function: Œuvre complète ou partie de l'œuvre
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Klaus Deininger, 2003. "Land Policies for Growth and Poverty Reduction," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 15125, December.
    2. Bloom, David E. & Kuhn, Michael & Prettner, Klaus, 2017. "Africa'S Prospects For Enjoying A Demographic Dividend," Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(1), pages 63-76, March.
    3. David E. BLOOM & Michael KUHN & Klaus PRETTNER, 2017. "Africa’s Prospects for Enjoying a Demographic Dividend," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(1), pages 63-76, March.
    4. Kalemli-Ozcan, Sebnem, 2003. "A stochastic model of mortality, fertility, and human capital investment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 103-118, February.
    5. Graziella Bertocchi, 2006. "The Law of Primogeniture and the Transition from Landed Aristocracy to Industrial Democracy," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 43-70, March.
    6. Lowder, Sarah K. & Skoet, Jakob & Raney, Terri, 2016. "The Number, Size, and Distribution of Farms, Smallholder Farms, and Family Farms Worldwide," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 16-29.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Bloom, David E. & Kuhn, Michael & Prettner, Klaus, 2023. "Fertility in High-Income Countries: Trends, Patterns, Determinants, and Consequences," IZA Discussion Papers 16500, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Elena Ambrosetti, 2022. "Migrations in the Mediterranean: old and new challenges and opportunities," RIEDS - Rivista Italiana di Economia, Demografia e Statistica - The Italian Journal of Economic, Demographic and Statistical Studies, SIEDS Societa' Italiana di Economia Demografia e Statistica, vol. 76(2), pages 4-12, April-Jun.
    3. Büttner, Nicolas & Grimm, Michael & Günther, Isabel & Harttgen, Kenneth & Klasen, Stephan, 2022. "The fertility transition in Sub-Saharan Africa: The role of structural change," Passauer Diskussionspapiere, Volkswirtschaftliche Reihe V-90-22, University of Passau, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    4. Andreas Backhaus & Elke Loichinger, 2022. "Female Labor Force Participation in Sub‐Saharan Africa: A Cohort Analysis," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 48(2), pages 379-411, June.
    5. Mesfin Mulugeta Woldegiorgis, 2023. "Drivers of demographic dividend in sub-Saharan Africa," Review of Evolutionary Political Economy, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 387-413, July.
    6. Huy, Hoang Trieu & Nguyen, Trung Thanh, 2019. "Cropland rental market and farm technical efficiency in rural Vietnam," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 408-423.
    7. Lamar Crombach & Jeroen Smits, 2022. "The Demographic Window of Opportunity and Economic Growth at Sub-National Level in 91 Developing Countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 161(1), pages 171-189, May.
    8. Olaniyan, Olanrewaju & Olasehinde, Noah & Odufuwa, Oyeteju & Awodumi, Olabanji, 2021. "The nature and extent of demographic dividend in West Africa: National transfer account approach," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 20(C).
    9. Cheick Kader M’baye, 2023. "Fertility, employment, and the demographic dividend in sub-Saharan African countries with incipient demographic transition: evidence from Mali," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 40(2), pages 1-15, June.
    10. Polyzos, Efstathios & Kuck, Simon & Abdulrahman, Khadija, 2022. "Demographic change and economic growth: The role of natural resources in the MENA region," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 1-13.
    11. Emmanuel Skoufias & Moulay Driss Zine Eddine El Idrissi, 2020. "Realizing Demographic Dividends in the Republic of Congo," World Bank Publications - Reports 34143, The World Bank Group.
    12. Lehmann-Hasemeyer, Sibylle & Prettner, Klaus & Tscheuschner, Paul, 2023. "The scientific revolution and its implications for long-run economic development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    13. James Duminy, 2023. "Critical Commentary: Beyond growth and density: Recentring the demographic drivers of urban health and risk in the global south," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(8), pages 1365-1376, June.
    14. Yahyaoui Ismahene, 2022. "Infectious Diseases, Trade, and Economic Growth: a Panel Analysis of Developed and Developing Countries," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 13(3), pages 2547-2583, September.
    15. Emmanuel Olatunbosun Benjamin, 2020. "Smallholder Agricultural Investment and Productivity under Contract Farming and Customary Tenure System: A Malawian Perspective," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(8), pages 1-17, August.
    16. Marc C. A. Wegerif & Arantxa Guereña, 2020. "Land Inequality Trends and Drivers," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-23, March.
    17. Patrizio Vanella & Philipp Deschermeier & Christina B. Wilke, 2020. "An Overview of Population Projections—Methodological Concepts, International Data Availability, and Use Cases," Forecasting, MDPI, vol. 2(3), pages 1-18, September.
    18. Alberto Bucci & Lorenzo Carbonari & Monia Ranalli & Giovanni Trovato, 2019. "Health and Development," CEIS Research Paper 470, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 24 Mar 2021.
    19. Patil, Vikram & Ghosh, Ranjan & Kathuria, Vinish & Farrell, Katharine N., 2020. "Money, Land or self-employment? Understanding preference heterogeneity in landowners’ choices for compensation under land acquisition in India," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    20. Graziella Bertocchi, 2011. "The Vanishing Bequest Tax: The Comparative Evolution Of Bequest Taxation In Historical Perspective," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(1), pages 107-131, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fertility; Inheritance; Sub-Saharan Africa;
    All these keywords.

    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:eca:wpaper:2013/367474. 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: Benoit Pauwels (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/arulbbe.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.