Strategic Fertility, Education Choices, and Conflicts in Deeply Divided Societies

Emeline Bezin (), Bastien Chabé-Ferret () and David de la Croix
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Emeline Bezin: PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement
David de la Croix: UCL - Université Catholique de Louvain = Catholic University of Louvain

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Abstract: Fertility becomes a strategic choice for minorities when having a larger share of the population helps to increase power. If parents invest resources to educate their children, then raising fertility for strategic reasons might be at the cost of future human capital. We dispel this view using census data from several developing countries. We show that religious and ethnic minorities in Indonesia, China, and Malaysia tend to invest more in both education and fertility compared to larger groups. Solving for the Nash equilibrium of an appropriation game between two groups with education and fertility being prescribed as group-specific behavioral norms, we offer a rationale for the observed patterns provided that human capital is an important input to appropriation.

Keywords: Human Capital; Nash equilibrium; Indonesia; Fertility; Quality-quantity trade-off; Minorities; Conflict; Population engineering (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gth and nep-sea
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Published in Journal of the European Economic Association, In press, ⟨10.1093/jeea/jvae027⟩

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Related works:
Working Paper: Strategic Fertility, Education Choices, and Conflicts in Deeply Divided Societies (2025)
Working Paper: Strategic Fertility, Education Choices, and Conflicts in Deeply Divided Societies (2018)
Working Paper: Strategic Fertility, Education Choices and Conflicts in Deeply Divided Societies (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:pseptp:hal-04877862

DOI: 10.1093/jeea/jvae027

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