Cohort Effects on Fertility as Age-Period Interactions: A Reanalysis of American Birth Rates, 1917–2020

Robert Schoen and Lowell Hargens
Additional contact information
Robert Schoen: Pennsylvania State University
Lowell Hargens: University of Washington, Department of Sociology

Chapter Chapter 5 in The Demography of Transforming Families, 2023, pp 67-92 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Fertility behavior, which is family building behavior, is widely seen as being influenced by age, period, and cohort factors, where cohort is a proxy for past influences. To avoid the collinearity problems caused by the fact that Age = Period − Cohort, we consider cohort effects to be Age*Period interactions. The RBC procedure is developed to decompose an array of fertility rates into its age, period, and age-period interaction components. Essentially, the RBC approach represents every birth rate as the product of three factors: the period fertility level, an average age-specific fertility proportion, and the age-period interaction. Calculations with hypothetical populations show how cohort effects appear as interaction effects. The RBC approach is then applied to United States fertility data for the 1917–1973 and 1974–2020 intervals. Numerous noteworthy interactions are found, but there is no clear evidence of cohort effects. We conclude that period effects are real and substantively important, not simply distortions of cohort behavior. Age and period effects have driven American fertility to a record low level, while cohort effects are not to be seen.

Keywords: Age effects; Period effects; Cohort fertility; APC problem (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:ssdmcp:978-3-031-29666-6_5

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783031296666

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-29666-6_5

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in The Springer Series on Demographic Methods and Population Analysis from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().