The effect of a newborn on household poverty: a multi-indicator analysis

Baris Ucar () and Gianni Betti

Department of Economics University of Siena from Department of Economics, University of Siena

Abstract: The causal relationship between fertility and poverty has not been thoroughly discussed in the existing literature. There are only a few articles directly addressing the issue. Studies which analyze the effect of fertility on overall poverty measures from a dynamic perspective are even fewer. This study aims to analyze the causal relationship between fertility and poverty. The main issue is to reveal the effect of fertility on poverty. In literature, there are various methods, which attempt to analyze this causal relationship. This study basically focuses on micro level analysis. The relationship is analyzed at household level. Such a study requires monitoring households throughout time to analyze the differences in their well-being occurring after the birth of a child. Their well-being is examined by using various indicators. In addition to consumption expenditure and income, conventional poverty indicators based on consumption expenditure and income are used along with fuzzy measures of poverty and deprivation index in a comparative way. The analysis throughout time is possible by making use of data from a panel survey where households are interviewed regularly at different times. For this study, Turkish SILC (Statistics on Income and Living Conditions) Survey data is used. From SILC survey it is possible to monitor households within a four years of time span. Since SILC lacks consumption expenditure variable, this is made available by statistical matching from the Household Budget Survey where such information exists. There are different suggested methods to analyze the causal effect of fertility on household well-being. The most widely used approach depends on using propensity scores, either running a regression or applying propensity score matching (PSM). The causal relationship analyses in this study employs mainly PSM method.

Keywords: Fertility; Childbirth; Poverty; Fuzzy Poverty; SILC; Treatment Effect; Propensity Score Matching (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 I32 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-12
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