Horizontal vs. vertical transmission of fertility preferences

Andrea Di Miceli

Journal of Comparative Economics, 2019, vol. 47, issue 3, 562-578

Abstract: I study the cultural transmission of fertility preferences among second-generation immigrant women observed in U.S. Censuses from 1910 to 1970. As hypothesized by Bisin and Verdier (2001), the transmission of preferences can be “vertical” or “horizontal”. Using a unique source documenting the variation in fertility behavior in Europe before and after the first demographic transition (1830–1970), I unpack the influence of parents (measured by source-country fertility at the time of departure from Europe) versus the influence of peers from the same source-country (measured by fertility of the same-age cohorts living in the source-country and transmitted by same-age recent immigrants). I find that the transmission mechanism is crucially affected by the number of foreign-born immigrant peers living in the same MSA. On one hand, the “vertical” channel of transmission is stronger in places where there are few newly arrived foreign-born immigrant couples from the same source-countries. On the other hand, the “horizontal” channel prevails in MSA’s densely populated by recently arrived immigrants from the same source-countries of second-generation ones.

Keywords: Cultural transmission; U.S. fertility; Channels of cultural transmission; Second-generation immigrants; Fertility preferences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J12 J13 N32 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jcecon:v:47:y:2019:i:3:p:562-578

DOI: 10.1016/j.jce.2019.06.001

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