Human Capital, Culture and the Onset of the Demographic Transition

David Cuberes () and Alberto Basso ()
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Alberto Basso: University of Alicante, Spain

No 2012024, Working Papers from The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper uses estimates of the dates at which different countries have experienced their demographic transitions to examine the main historical determinants of these transitions. We first show that genetic distance to the United Kingdom, a measure of cultural relatedness used in Spolaore and Wacziarg (2009), is positively associated with the onset of the demographic transition, implying that countries that have a larger genetic distance from the UK tend to experience later transitions. We then unveil a plausible mechanism that can rationalize this result. We show that genetic distance to the UK is negatively related to a country's initial human capital, measured as its schooling level in 1870. One interpretation of this finding is that a larger genetic distance is associated with higher barriers to technological diffusion and hence a lower demand for human capital. This low demand for human capital then delays the demographic transition by providing less incentives for households to switch from quantity to quality of children. Instrumenting initial human capital using genetic distance to the UK and alternative measures of adherence to Protestantism, we confirm the causal link between human capital and the onset of the demographic transition. Further, we show that the impact of cultural relatedness to the UK can be mainly attributed to its effect on educational levels.

Keywords: education; culture; fertility transition; unified growth theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 J10 N10 O18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2012
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-hrm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:shf:wpaper:2012024

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