Ethnic fertility and exposure to armed conflict: the case of Sri Lanka

Manasvi Sharma ()
Additional contact information
Manasvi Sharma: University of California

Review of Economics of the Household, 2024, vol. 22, issue 4, No 2, 1317-1351

Abstract: Abstract This paper investigates the impact of exposure to armed conflict on fertility in Sri Lanka. Using a difference-in-difference methodology, I find that exposure to civil war led to a reduction in female fertility in Sri Lanka, with evidence of an increased female age at marriage in high-conflict districts as a mechanism. The paper further focuses on ethnic disparities in demographic adjustments triggered by exposure to conflict. It determines if conflict altered the fertility patterns of the Sinhalese majority and the Sri Lankan Tamil minority differently. Estimates suggest that there is a differential in fertility adjustments of the two ethnic groups in response to conflict: the reduction in crude birth rate was significantly smaller for the Sri Lankan Tamils compared to the Sinhalese across various model specifications. The presence of an ethnic group-level replacement effect led to a lesser reduction in fertility for Sri Lankan Tamils. These results contribute to the literature on the impact of armed conflict and underscore the importance of studying demographic adjustments by sub-groups, specifically ethnicity in this context, as the intensity of adjustment often varies with the socio-political vulnerability of the group. Understanding these disparities is crucial as a sustained demographic differential has the potential to impact the ethnic composition of Sri Lanka and may further crystallize the ethnic divide in an already volatile political setting.

Keywords: Fertility; Armed conflict; Ethnicity; Replacement effect; Age at marriage; Sri Lanka (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 J11 J13 J15 N45 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11150-024-09703-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
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:kap:reveho:v:22:y:2024:i:4:d:10.1007_s11150-024-09703-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/11150/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11150-024-09703-y

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Economics of the Household is currently edited by Shoshana Grossbard

More articles in Review of Economics of the Household from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().