Religions, Fertility and Growth in South-East Asia

David de la Croix and Clara Delavallade

No 2015002, LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES from Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)

Abstract: Through indirect inference, we investigate the extent to which religions’supposed pronatalism is detrimental to growth via the fertility/education channel. Using censuses from South-East Asia, we first estimate an empirical model of fertility and show that having a religious affiliation significantly raises fertility. This effect is stronger for couples with intermediate to high education levels. We next use these estimates to identify the parameters of a structural model of fertility choice. On average, Catholicism is the most pro-child religion (increasing spending on children), followed by Buddhism, while Islam has a strong pro-birth component (redirecting spending from quality to quantity). We show that pro-child religions depress growth in the early stages by lowering saving, physical capital, and labor supply. These effects account for 10% to 50% of the actual growth gaps between countries over 1950-1980. At later stages of growth, pro-birth religions lower human capital accumulation, explaining between 10% and 20% of the gap between Muslim and Buddhist countries over 1980-2010.

Keywords: Quality-quantity tradeoff; Catholicism; Buddhism; Islam; Education; Saving (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 O11 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 57
Date: 2015-01-26
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-fdg, nep-gro and nep-sea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Journal Article: RELIGIONS, FERTILITY, AND GROWTH IN SOUTHEAST ASIA (2018)
Working Paper: Religions, Fertility, and Growth in South-East Asia (2018)
Working Paper: Religions, Fertility, and Growth in South-East Asia (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ctl:louvir:2015002

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