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. Edoardo Teso, 2019. "The Long-Term Effect of Demographic Shocks on the Evolution of Gender Roles: Evidence from the transatlantic Slave Trade," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(2), pages 497-534.
    2. Eliana La Ferrara & Annamaria Milazzo, 2017. "Customary Norms, Inheritance, and Human Capital: Evidence from a Reform of the Matrilineal System in Ghana," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 166-185, October.
    3. Klaus Deininger, 2003. "Land Policies for Growth and Poverty Reduction," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 15125, April.
    4. Stelios Michalopoulos & Louis Putterman & David N Weil, 2019. "Correction to: The Influence of Ancestral Lifeways on Individual Economic Outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(4), pages 1336-1336.
    5. J. Estudillo & A. Quisumbing & K. Otsuka, 2001. "Gender Differences in Land Inheritance, Schooling and Lifetime Income: Evidence from the Rural Philippines," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(4), pages 23-48.
    6. 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.
    7. Roy, Sanchari, 2015. "Empowering women? Inheritance rights, female education and dowry payments in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 233-251.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. BenYishay, Ariel & Grosjean, Pauline & Vecci, Joe, 2017. "The fish is the friend of matriliny: Reef density and matrilineal inheritance," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 234-249.
    11. 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.
    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. Bertocchi, Graziella & Dimico, Arcangelo & Falco, Chiara, 2024. "Family Planning and Ethnic Heritage: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1511, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    2. Mathilde Sage, 2025. "Children are a Poor Women’s Wealth: How Inheritance Rights Affect Fertility," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2025004, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).

    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. Sébastien Fontenay & Paula Eugenia Gobbi & Marc Goñi, 2025. "Fertility in Sub-Saharan Africa: the Role of Inheritance," Working Papers ECARES 2025-06, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    2. Siwan Anderson & Chris Bidner, 2021. "An Institutional Perspective on the Economics of the Family," Discussion Papers dp21-14, Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University.
    3. Collins, Matthew, 2022. "Sibling Gender, Inheritance Customs and Educational Attainment: Evidence from Matrilineal and Patrilineal Societies," Working Papers 2022:5, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    4. Lambert, Sylvie & Ravallion, Martin & van de Walle, Dominique, 2014. "Intergenerational mobility and interpersonal inequality in an African economy," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 327-344.
    5. Vaidehi Tandel & Arnab Dutta & Sahil Gandhi & Ashwini Narayanan, 2023. "Women’s right to property and the child quantity-quality trade-off: evidence from India," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(4), pages 2967-3003, October.
    6. Ulugbek Aminjonov & Olivier Bargain & Maira Colacce & Luca Tiberti, 2022. "Culture, Intra-household Distribution and Individual Poverty," Working Papers - Economics wp2022_21.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    7. Meinzen-Dick, Ruth & Quisumbing, Agnes & Doss, Cheryl & Theis, Sophie, 2019. "Women's land rights as a pathway to poverty reduction: Framework and review of available evidence," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 72-82.
    8. Lambrecht, Isabel Brigitte & Synt, Nang Lun Kham & Win, Hnin Ei & Mahrt, Kristi & Win, Khin Zin, 2024. "“It doesn’t matter at all—we are family”: Titling and joint property rights in Myanmar," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    9. Fenske, James & Gupta, Bishnupriya & Mukhopadhyay, Anwesh, 2025. "Colonial Persistence," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 752, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    10. Rao, Nitya, 2006. "Land rights, gender equality and household food security: Exploring the conceptual links in the case of India," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 180-193, April.
    11. Liyousew Gebremedhin Borga, 2023. "Family policy, intrahousehold bargaining, and child health," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(2), pages 663-684, May.
    12. Christoph Engel & Klaus Heine & Shaheen Naseer, 2021. "Religion and Tradition in Conflict Experimentally Testing the Power of Social Norms to Invalidate Religious Law," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2021_13, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    13. Graziella Bertocchi & Arcangelo Dimico & Gian Luca Tedeschi, 2022. "Strangers and Foreigners: Trust and Attitudes toward Citizenship," CHILD Working Papers Series 100 JEL Classification: J, Centre for Household, Income, Labour and Demographic Economics (CHILD) - CCA.
    14. Gershman, Boris, 2020. "Witchcraft beliefs as a cultural legacy of the Atlantic slave trade: Evidence from two continents," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    15. Meinzen-Dick, Ruth S. & Quisumbing, Agnes R. & Theis, Sophie & Doss, Cheryl R., 2017. "Women’s land rights as a pathway to poverty reduction: A framework and review of available evidence," IFPRI discussion papers 1663, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    16. Sofia Amaral, 2015. "Do Improved Property Rights Decrease Violence Against Women in India?," Discussion Papers 15-10, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham.
    17. 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.
    18. Izumi, Yutaro & Park, Sangyoon & Yang, Hyunjoo, 2023. "The effects of South Korean Protestantism on human capital and female empowerment, 1930–2010," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 422-438.
    19. Brodeur, Abel & Mabeu, Marie Christelle & Pongou, Roland, 2020. "Ancestral Norms, Legal Origins, and Female Empowerment," IZA Discussion Papers 13105, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Olivier Bargain & Jordan Loper & Roberta Ziparo, 2020. "Traditional Norms, Access to Divorce and Women’s Empowerment: Evidence from Indonesia," Bordeaux Economics Working Papers 2020-14, Bordeaux School of Economics (BSE).

    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.