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. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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. 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.
    2. Marc C. A. Wegerif & Arantxa Guereña, 2020. "Land Inequality Trends and Drivers," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-23, March.
    3. 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.
    4. 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).
    5. Alberto Bucci & Lorenzo Carbonari & Monia Ranalli & Giovanni Trovato, 2019. "Health and Development," CEIS Research Paper 470, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 24 Mar 2021.
    6. Rabah Arezki & Klaus Deininger & Harris Selod, 2015. "What Drives the Global "Land Rush"?," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 29(2), pages 207-233.
    7. Okada, Keisuke, 2012. "The effects of female HIV/AIDS status on fertility and child health in Cambodia," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 560-570.
    8. Luis Bauluz & Yajna Govind & Filip Novokmet, 2020. "Global Land Inequality," PSE Working Papers halshs-03022318, HAL.
    9. Grimm, Michael & Klasen, Stephan, 2007. "Geography vs. Institutions at the Village Level," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Göttingen 2007 9, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    10. Nathan Foley-Fisher & Eoin McLaughlin, 2015. "Capitalising on the Irish Land Question:Land Reform and State Banking in Ireland, 1891-1938," Discussion Papers in Environment and Development Economics 2015-03, University of St. Andrews, School of Geography and Sustainable Development.
    11. Baudin, Thomas, 2010. "A Role For Cultural Transmission In Fertility Transitions," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(4), pages 454-481, September.
    12. Lenyeletse V. Basupi & Claire H. Quinn & Andrew J. Dougill, 2017. "Pastoralism and Land Tenure Transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Conflicting Policies and Priorities in Ngamiland, Botswana," Land, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-17, December.
    13. Marion Mercier & Rama Lionel Ngenzebuke & Philip Verwimp, 2016. "Violence exposure and welfare over time: Evidence from the Burundi civil war," HiCN Working Papers 198 updated, Households in Conflict Network.
    14. Jeremy Greenwood & Nezih Guner & Guillaume Vandenbroucke, 2017. "Family Economics Writ Large," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1346-1434, December.
    15. Sascha Becker & Francesco Cinnirella & Ludger Woessmann, 2010. "The trade-off between fertility and education: evidence from before the demographic transition," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 177-204, September.
    16. Peter Lorentzen & John McMillan & Romain Wacziarg, 2008. "Death and development," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 81-124, June.
    17. Thomas Vendryes, 2014. "Peasants Against Private Property Rights: A Review Of The Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(5), pages 971-995, December.
    18. Leakey, Roger & Kranjac-Berisavljevic, Gordana & Caron, Patrick & Craufurd, Peter & Martin, Adrienne M. & McDonald, Andy & Abedini, Walter & Afiff, Suraya & Bakurin, Ndey & Bass, Steve & Hilbeck, Ange, 2009. "Impacts of AKST on development and sustainability goals," Book Chapters,, International Water Management Institute.
    19. Nguyen Thang Dao & Julio Dávila & Angela Greulich, 2021. "The education gender gap and the demographic transition in developing countries," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(2), pages 431-474, April.
    20. Bouquet, Emmanuelle, 2009. "State-Led Land Reform and Local Institutional Change: Land Titles, Land Markets and Tenure Security in Mexican Communities," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 1390-1399, August.

    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.