The Old-Age Security Motive for Fertility: Evidence from the Extension of Social Pensions in Namibia

Pauline Rossi and Mathilde Godard

No 2002, CEPREMAP Working Papers (Docweb) from CEPREMAP

Abstract: The old-age security motive for fertility postulates that people’s needs for old-age support raise the demand for children. We test this widespread idea using the extension of social pensions in Namibia during the nineties. The reform eliminated inequalities in pension coverage and benefit across regions and ethnic groups. Combining differences in pre-reform pensions and differences in exposure across cohorts, we show that pensions substantially reduce fertility, especially in late reproductive life. This article provides the first quasi-experimental quantification of the old-age security motive. The results suggest that improving social protection for the elderly could go a long way in fostering fertility decline in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Keywords: Fertility; Old-age pensions; Social security; Africa; Difference-in-differences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 49 pages
Date: 2020-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-age, nep-dem and nep-ore
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.cepremap.fr/depot/docweb/docweb2002.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Old-Age Security Motive for Fertility: Evidence from the Extension of Social Pensions in Namibia (2022)
Working Paper: The Old-Age Security Motive for Fertility: Evidence from the Extension of Social Pensions in Namibia (2022)
Working Paper: The Old-Age Security Motive for Fertility: Evidence from the Extension of Social Pensions in Namibia (2021)
Working Paper: The Old-Age Security Motive for Fertility: Evidence from the Extension of Social Pensions in Namibia (2019)
Working Paper: The Old-Age Security Motive for Fertility: Evidence from the Extension of Social Pensions in Namibia (2019)
Working Paper: The Old-Age Security Motive for Fertility: Evidence from the Extension of Social Pensions in Namibia (2019)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpm:docweb:2002

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPREMAP Working Papers (Docweb) from CEPREMAP Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mathieu Perona ().