The political economy of fertility

Thorsten Janus

Public Choice, 2013, vol. 155, issue 3, 493-505

Abstract: This paper studies the political economy of fertility. Specifically, I argue that fertility may be a strategic choice for ethnic groups engaged in redistributive conflict. I first present a simple conflict model where high fertility is optimal for each ethnic group if and only if the economy’s ethnic diversity is high, institutions are weak, or both. I then test the model in a cross-national dataset. Consistent with the theory, I find that economies where the product of ethnic diversity and a measure of institutional weakness is high have increased fertility rates. I conclude that fertility may depend on political factors. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2013

Keywords: Population; Fertility; Ethnic diversity; Social conflict; Social norms; D72; D74; J13; O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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DOI: 10.1007/s11127-011-9879-7

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