Fertility in an Unequal, Innovative World

Monisankar Bishnu and Chakshu Jain

CAMA Working Papers from Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University

Abstract: We develop a theory of the income-fertility relationship across all stages of development. Technological progress shapes fertility through two opposing channels: it raises the return to education, reducing desired family size, and it generates inequality which, depending on the development stage, can raise aggregate fertility. Their interaction produces a non-monotonic historical fertility path - rising in the Malthusian regime, falling during the demographic transition, and rising again at high income. A key implication is that inequality reshapes the composition of fertility across the human-capital distribution, changing the sign of the link between technological progress and long-run growth in a regime-dependent way. We provide empirical evidence consistent with the mechanism using US state-level data. Depending on how technological progress and inequality interact, the economy may achieve sustained growth, an Empty Planet, or Malthusian-like stagnation.

Keywords: fertility; growth; technological change; inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D1 J1 O10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 54 pages
Date: 2026-06
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:een:camaaa:2026-46

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