A Comparative Assessment of the Urbanization – Fertility Nexus in Most Urbanized Countries of Sub-Saharan Africa

Jemiluyi Olufunmilayo () and Jeke Leward
Additional contact information
Jemiluyi Olufunmilayo: Department of Economics, Nelson Mandela University Summerstrand Campus South, Port Elizabeth South Africa.
Jeke Leward: Nelson Mandela University, Port Elizabeth South Africa.

Zagreb International Review of Economics and Business, 2023, vol. 26, issue 1, 165-183

Abstract: There is a near-consensus in the literature that urbanization is incompatible with large family size owing to factors such as high cost of urban living, opportunity cost of having children in urban centers and increasing awareness of benefits of small family size. However, a cursory glance at the data on sub-Saharan Africa cast doubt on the incompatibility of urbanization with high fertility rate. Hence, this paper investigates the urbanization-fertility nexus in the two most urbanized countries of SSA – Nigeria and South Africa. Exploiting time series data for both countries within a Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square (FMOLS) framework, the incompatibility hypothesis is refuted in both countries. Specifically, the analysis suggests that in Nigeria and South Africa, increasing degree of urbanization is positively related with fertility rate with the magnitude of the relationship being higher in Nigeria than South Africa. These findings imply that policies aimed at improving urbanization process and reducing fertility rates are crucial in both countries.

Keywords: Urbanization; Fertility rate; Nigeria; South Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I15 J11 J13 O18 P25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.2478/zireb-2023-0008 (text/html)

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:vrs:zirebs:v:26:y:2023:i:1:p:165-183:n:1008

DOI: 10.2478/zireb-2023-0008

Access Statistics for this article

Zagreb International Review of Economics and Business is currently edited by Jurica Šimurina

More articles in Zagreb International Review of Economics and Business from Sciendo
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().