Gender Gaps in Completed Fertility

Erica Field, Vera Molitor, Alice Schoonbroodt and Michele Tertilt
Additional contact information
Erica Field: Duke University
Vera Molitor: University of Mannheim
Alice Schoonbroodt: University of Iowa

JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, 2016, vol. 82, issue 2, 167-206

Abstract: The most common measure of reproductive behavior is the total fertility rate, which measures children born per woman. However, little work exists measuring male fertility behavior. We use survey data from several waves of the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) in eight Sub-Saharan African countries. We document several interesting differences in fertility outcomes of men and women. First, comparing completed fertility by birth cohorts, we find that on average men have more children than women in seven out of eight countries we consider. The gaps are large – reaching up to 4.6 children in Burkina Faso. Positive gaps are possible when populations are growing and men father children with younger women. Such a situation often coincides with polygyny. Indeed, we find that the fertility gap is positively related to the degree of polygyny. Second, we find a lower variance in completed fertility rates for women than for men, especially in high polygyny countries. Third, we find that differences in the desire to have children can largely be explained by differences in realized fertility. Finally, we find that for men, the demographic transition started earlier and was steeper than for women. These novel facts are useful when building theories of fertility behavior.

Keywords: Fertility; Gender; Polygyny (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-06-01
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/dem.2016.5 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: GENDER GAPS IN COMPLETED FERTILITY* (2016)
Working Paper: Gender Gaps in Completed Fertility (2016)
Working Paper: Gender Gaps in Completed Fertility (2015)
Working Paper: Gender Gaps in Completed Fertility (2015)
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:ctl:louvde:v:82:y:2016:i:2:p:167-206

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics from Cambridge University Press Place Montesquieu 3, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium). Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sebastien SCHILLINGS ().