The short- and long-term determinants of fertility in Uruguay

Zuleika Ferre, Patricia Triunfo and Jos\'e-Ignacio Ant\'on

Papers from arXiv.org

Abstract: This paper examines the determinants of fertility among women at different stages of their reproductive lives in Uruguay. To this end, we employ time series analysis methods based on data from 1968 to 2021 and panel data techniques based on department-level statistical information from 1984 to 2019. The results of our first econometric exercise indicate a cointegration relationship between fertility and economic performance, education and infant mortality, with differences observed by reproductive stage. We find a negative relationship between income and fertility for women aged 20-29 that persists for women aged 30 and over. This result suggests that having children is perceived as an opportunity cost for women in this age group. We also observe a negative relationship between education and adolescent fertility, which has implications for the design of public policies. A panel data analysis with econometric techniques allowing us to control for unobserved heterogeneity confirms that income is a relevant factor for all groups of women and reinforces the crucial role of education in reducing teenage fertility. We also identify a negative correlation between fertility and employment rates for women aged 30 and above. We outline some possible explanations for these findings in the context of work-life balance issues and argue for the importance of implementing social policies to address them.

Date: 2023-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://arxiv.org/pdf/2304.00539 Latest version (application/pdf)

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:arx:papers:2304.00539

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Papers from arXiv.org
Bibliographic data for series maintained by arXiv administrators ().