Children are a Poor Women’s Wealth: How Inheritance Rights Affect Fertility

Mathilde Sage
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Mathilde Sage: UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)

No 2025004, LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES from Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)

Abstract: Does improving widows’ inheritance rights have the potential to reduce fertility rates in Sub-Saharan Africa? This paper exploits a natural experiment in Namibia to identify the causal impact of a reform implemented in 2008 that improved widow’s inheritance rights on fertility behaviors. I combine pre-reform variations in customary inheritance laws across traditional authorities with time variation, using a difference-in-differences strategy. The results indicate that the reform led to a 24% decrease in the annual birth rate, equivalent to a reduction of one child over a woman’s reproductive life. Additionally, the reform delayed the age at first birth by 5.5 months. I find suggestive evidence that women had more children and at an earlier age as a mitigating strategy against the prevalent risk of dispossession in widowhood. In contexts where the widowhood risk may materialize at a young age due to large age gap between partners and to women’s longer life expectancy, women anticipate the need to have a financially independent child by their 40’s. These findings suggest that protecting widows’ inheritance rights could be a novel, low-cost policy lever to reduce fertility rates and delay early childbearing, addressing major development challenges in the subcontinent.

Keywords: Inheritance rights; Widows; Fertility; sub-Saharan Africa; Insurance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J12 J13 J16 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-02-25
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ctl:louvir:2025004

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