Social externalities, endogenous childcare costs, and fertility choice

Ratbek Dzhumashev and Ainura Tursunalieva ()
Additional contact information
Ainura Tursunalieva: Monash University

Journal of Population Economics, 2023, vol. 36, issue 1, No 14, 397-429

Abstract: Abstract We reconcile the steep decline in fertility rates during the demographic transition with the fertility rebound observed in recent decades in high-income countries. The micro-foundations of the optimal choice of agents in our expanded model include endogenous childcare costs and social externalities stemming from human capital, consumption, and fertility norms. Combining these factors with the quality-quantity trade-off in fertility choice explains the inverse J-shaped relationship between fertility and economic development. Moreover, the simulated average fertility rates based on the model are reasonably consistent with the observed pattern of the evolution of the cohort fertility rates in high-income countries. Sensitivity analyses show that the model fits historical cohort fertility rates only when it includes the effects of social externalities and endogenous childcare costs.

Keywords: Fertility rate; Social externalities; Childcare costs; Demographic transition; Fertility rebound (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J11 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00148-021-00885-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:jopoec:v:36:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1007_s00148-021-00885-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... tion/journal/148/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s00148-021-00885-8

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Population Economics is currently edited by K.F. Zimmermann

More articles in Journal of Population Economics from Springer, European Society for Population Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().