Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T00:55:46.890Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

THE FERTILITY DECLINE IN THE UNITED STATES: SCHOOLING AND INCOME

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2017

Casper Worm Hansen ,
Peter Sandholt Jensen  and
Lars Lønstrup
Casper Worm Hansen*
Affiliation:
University of Copenhagen
Peter Sandholt Jensen
Affiliation:
University of Southern Denmark
Lars Lønstrup
Affiliation:
University of Southern Denmark
*
Address correspondence to: Casper Worm Hansen, University of Copenhagen, Department of Economics, Øster Farimagsgade 5, 1353 København K, Denmark; e-mail: casper.worm.hansen@econ.ku.dk.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study investigates the determinants of the fertility transition in the United States from 1850 to the end of the 20th century. We find a robust negative relation between years of schooling and fertility. The magnitude of our baseline estimate suggests that the rise in schooling accounts for about 60% of the US fertility decline. In contrast, we find no evidence of a robust relation between income per capita and fertility. This pattern corroborates theories stressing the importance of human capital investments in generating a transition from high to low fertility.

Keywords

Fertility TransitionSchoolingIncomeUS States
Type
Articles
Information
Macroeconomic Dynamics , Volume 22 , Issue 6 , September 2018 , pp. 1584 - 1612
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

We thank an associate editor and two anonymous reviewers for useful comments and suggestions. We also thank Oded Galor, Carl-Johan Dalgaard, Fabrice Murtin, Paul Sharp, and Philipp Ager for useful comments and suggestions. We finally thank Lene Holbæk for editorial assistance. All errors and omissions are our own. This work was supported by a grant from the Danish Research Council Reference No. 0602-02108B to Lars Lønstrup.

References

REFERENCES

Aaronson, D., Lange, F., and Mazumder, B. (2014) Fertility transitions along the extensive and intensive margins. American Economic Review 104 (11), 3701–3724.Google Scholar
Acemoglu, D., Suresh, N., Pascual, R., and Robinson, J. A. (2015) Democracy, redistribution and inequality. In Atkinson, A. and Bourgninon, F. (eds.), Handbook of Income Distribution. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Andersen, T. B., Dalgaard, C.-J., and Selaya, P. (2016) Climate and the emergence of global income differences. Review of Economic Studies 83 (4), 1334–1363.Google Scholar
Angeles, L. (2010) Demographic transitions: Analyzing the effects of mortality on fertility. Journal of Population Economics 23 (1), 99–120.Google Scholar
Angrist, J. D. and Evans, W. N. (1998) Children and their parents' labor supply: Evidence from exogenous variation in family size. American Economic Review 88 (3), 450–477.Google Scholar
Ashraf, Q. and Galor, O. (2011) Dynamics and stagnation in the Malthusian epoch. American Economic Review 101 (5), 2003–2041.Google Scholar
Barro, R. and Lee, J.-W. (1993) International comparisons of educational attainment. Journal of Monetary Economics 32 (3), 363–394.Google Scholar
Baudin, T. (2010) A role for cultural transmission in fertility transitions. Macroeconomic Dynamics 14 (4), 454.Google Scholar
Becker, G. S. and Lewis, H. G. (1973) On the interaction between quality and quantity of children. Journal of Political Economy 81 (2), 279–288.Google Scholar
Becker, G. S. and Tomes, N. (1976) Child endowments and the quantity and quality of children. Journal of Political Economy 84 (4), S143–S162.Google Scholar
Becker, S. O., Cinirella, F., and Woessman, L. (2010) The trade-off between fertility and education: Evidence from before the demographic transition. Journal of Economic Growth 15 (3), 177–204.Google Scholar
Becker, S. O., Cinirella, F., and Woessman, L. (2013) Does women's education affect fertility? Evidence from pre-demographic transition Prussia. European Review of Economic History 17 (1), 24–44.Google Scholar
Birchenall, J. A. (2007) Escaping high mortality. Journal of Economic Growth 12 (4), 351–387.Google Scholar
Bleakley, H. (2007) Disease and development: Evidence from hookworm eradication in the American South. Quarterly Journal of Economics 122 (1), 73–117.Google Scholar
Bloom, D. E., Canning, D., and Fink, G. (2009) Fertility, female labor force participation, and the demographic dividend. Journal of Economic Growth 14 (2), 79–101.Google Scholar
Caldwell, J. C. (1980) Mass education as a determinant of the timing of fertility decline. Population Studies 37 (2), 185–205.Google Scholar
Cervellati, M. and Sunde, U. (2015) The economic and demographic transition, mortality, and comparative development. American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 7 (3), 189–225.Google Scholar
Cochrane, S. H. (1979) Fertility and Education: What Do We Really Know? Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, J. E., Kravdal, Ż., and Keilman, N. (2011) Childbearing impeded education more than education impeded childbearing among Norwegian women. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 108 (29), 11830–11835.Google Scholar
de la Croix, D. and Doepke, M. (2003) Inequality and growth: Why differential fertility matters. American Economic Review 93 (3), 1091–1113.Google Scholar
de la Croix, D. and Licandro, O. (2013) The child is father of the man: Implications for the demographic transition. Economic Journal 123 (567), 236–261.Google Scholar
Doepke, M. (2004) Accounting for fertility decline during the transition to growth. Journal of Economic Growth 9 (3), 347–383.Google Scholar
Doepke, M. (2005) Child mortality and fertility decline: Does the Barro–Becker model fit the facts? Journal of Population Economics 18 (2), 337–366.Google Scholar
Easterlin, R. (1957) State income estimates. In Lee, E. S., Miller, A. R., Brainerd, C. P., and Easterlin, R. (eds.), Population Redistribution and Economic Growth, United States, 1870–1950, Volume 1: Methodological Considerations and Reference Tables. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society.Google Scholar
Easterlin, R. (1960) Interregional differences in per capita income, population, and total income, 1840–1950. In Parker, W. N. (ed.), Trends in the American Economy in the Nineteenth Eentury. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Elgin, C. (2012) A theory of economic development with endogenous fertility. Macroeconomic Dynamics 16, 686–705.Google Scholar
Galor, O. (2011) Unified Growth Theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Galor, O. and Moav, O. (2002) Natural selection and the origin of economic growth. Quarterly Journal of Economics 115 (2), 469–497.Google Scholar
Galor, O. and Weil, D. N. (1996) The gender gap, fertility, and growth. American Economic Review 86 (3), 374–387.Google Scholar
Galor, O. and Weil, D. N. (2000) Population, technology, and growth: From Malthusian stagnation to the demographic transition and beyond. American Economic Review 90 (4), 806–828.Google Scholar
Greenwood, J. and Seshadri, A. (2002) The U.S. demographic transition. American Economic Review (Papers and Proceedings) 92 (2), 153–159.Google Scholar
Guinnane, T. W. (2011) The historical fertility transition: A guide for economists. Journal of Economic Literature 49 (3), 589–614.Google Scholar
Hacker, J. D. (2003) Rethinking the “early” decline of marital fertility in the United States. Demography 40 (4), 605–620.Google Scholar
Haines, M. R. (1994) The Population of the United States, 1790–1920. NBER historical working paper no. 56.Google Scholar
Haines, M. R. and Hacker, J. D. (2006) The Puzzle of the Antebellum Fertility Decline in the United States: New Evidence and Reconsideration. NBER working paper 12571.Google Scholar
Hazan, M. and Zoabi, H. (2006) Does longevity cause growth? A theoretical critique. Journal of Economic Growth 11 (4), 363–76.Google Scholar
Herzer, D., Strulik, H., and Vollmer, S. (2012) The long-run determinants of fertility: One century of demographic change 1900–1999. Journal of Economic Growth 17 (4), 357–385.Google Scholar
Jones, L. E., Schoonbroodt, A., and Tertilt, M. (2011) Fertility Inefficiencies and Development. 2011 meeting papers 369, Society for Economic Dynamics.Google Scholar
Jones, L. E. and Tertilt, M. (2008) An economic history of fertility in the U.S.: 1826–1960. In Rupert, P. (ed.), Frontiers of Family Economics, vol. 1. Bingley, UK: Emerald Press.Google Scholar
Kalemli-Ozcan, S. (2003) A stochastic model of mortality, fertility, and human capital investment. Journal of Development Economics 70 (1), 103–118.Google Scholar
Kalemli-Ozcan, S. (2008) The uncertain lifetime and the timing of human capital investment. Journal of Population Economics 21 (3), 557–572.Google Scholar
Klemp, M. and Weisdorf, J. L. (2012) Fecundity, Fertility and Family Reconstitution Data: The Child Quantity-Quality Trade-Off Revisited. CEPR discussion paper no. DP9121.Google Scholar
Lagerlöf, N.-P. (2003) From Malthus to modern growth: Can epidemics explain the three regimes? International Economic Review 44 (2), 755–777.Google Scholar
Lam, D. and Duryea, S. (1999) Effects of schooling on fertility, labor supply, and investments in children, with evidence from Brazil. Journal of Human Resources 34 (1), 160–192.Google Scholar
Mehrhoff, J. (2009) A Solution to the Problem of too many Instruments in Dynamic Panel Data GMM. Discussion paper, University of Essen-Duisburg.Google Scholar
Moav, O. (2005) Cheap children and the persistence of poverty. Economic Journal 115 (500), 88–110.Google Scholar
Morrison, C. and Murtin, F. (2009) The century of education. Journal of Human Capital 3 (1), 1–42.Google Scholar
Murphy, T. (2015) Old habits die hard (sometimes). Journal of Economic Growth 20 (2), 177–222.Google Scholar
Murphy, K. M., Simon, C., and Tamura, R. (2008) Fertility decline, baby boom, and economic growth. Journal of Human Capital 2 (3), 262–302.Google Scholar
Murtin, F. (2013) Long-term determinants of the demographic transition: 1870–2000. Review of Economics and Statistics 95 (2), 617–631.Google Scholar
Rahman, A. S. (2013) The road not taken: What is the “appropriate” path to development when growth is unbalanced? Macroeconomic Dynamics 17, 747–778.Google Scholar
Reher, D. S. (2004) The demographic transition revisited as a global process. Population, Space and Place 10, 19–41.Google Scholar
Roodman, D. (2009) A note on the theme of too many instruments. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 71 (1), 135–158.Google Scholar
Rosenzweig, M. R. and Wolpin, K. I. (1980) Testing the quantity-quality fertility model: The use of twins as natural experiment. Econometria 48 (1), 227–240.Google Scholar
Schultz, T. P. (1985) Changing world prices, women's wages, and the fertility transition: Sweden, 1860–1910. Journal of Political Economy 93 (6), 1126–1154.Google Scholar
Schultz, T. P. (1994) Human capital, family planning, and their effects on population growth. American Economic Review 84 (2), 255–260.Google Scholar
Soares, R. (2005) Mortality reductions, educational attainment, and fertility choice. American Economic Review 95 (3), 580–601.Google Scholar
Spolaore, E. and Wacziarg, R. (2014) Fertility and Modernity. Department of Economics, Tufts University, Discussion papers series no. 779.Google Scholar
Strulik, H. (2004) Child mortality, child labour and economic development. Economic Journal 114 (497), 547–568.Google Scholar
Strulik, H. (2008) Geography, health, and the pace of demo-economic development. Journal of Development Economics 86 (1), 61–75.Google Scholar
Strulik, H. and Weisdorf, J. (2014) How child costs and survival shaped the industrial revolution and the demographic transition. Macroeconomic Dynamics 18 (1), 114–144.Google Scholar
Tamura, R., Curtis, S., and Murphy, K. M. (2012) Black and White Fertility, Differential Baby Booms: The Value of Civil Rights. MPRA paper no. 40921.Google Scholar
Turner, C., Tamura, R., Mulholland, S. E., and Baier, S. (2006) Education and income of the states of the United States: 1840–2000. Journal of Economic Growth 12 (2), 101–158.Google Scholar
Wahl, J. (1992) American fertility decline in the nineteenth century: Tradeoff of quantity and quality? In Goldin, C. and Rockoff, H. (eds.), Strategic Factors in Nineteenth Century American Economic History: A Volume to Honor Robert W. Fogel. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Yasui, D. (2016) Adult longevity and growth takeoff. Macroeconomic Dynamics 20, 165–188.Google Scholar