Rainfall Risk and Fertility: Evidence from Farm Settlements during the American Demographic Transition

Michael Grimm

No 10351, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Fertility is a main driver and outcome of long-term growth. Yet, fertility may not only interact with the level of income but also with its volatility. In pre-modern economies where formal social security was largely absent, fertility decisions may also have been made in view of insuring income shocks which were hard to predict such as an income shock due to crop disease, a shortage in rainfall, a case of serious illness or a job loss. In this paper, I focus on the demographic transition in the United States covering the period 1870 to 1930 and explore whether variation in fertility among American settlers can be explained by variations in exposure to rainfall risks. Identification relies on fertility differences between farm and non-farm households within counties and over time. The results suggest that increased rainfall risk does indeed increase fertility among farming households but not among households with other occupations that are less dependent on rainfall. The channel is robust to other relevant forces such as returns to education and children's survival. The analysis also shows that this effect is reduced if risk management devices such as irrigation systems, formal financial institutions or machinery emerge. The findings contribute to the understanding of the demographic transition in the US and in risk-prone areas more generally.

Keywords: demographic transition; rainfall risk; income shocks; insurance; historical data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 N31 N32 O12 Q12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 54 pages
Date: 2016-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-gro and nep-his
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published - published in: Journal of Economic Geography, 2021, 21, 593-618.

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp10351.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:iza:izadps:dp10351

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().