Censorship, Family Planning, and the Historical Fertility Transition

Beach, Brian; Hanlon, W. Walker

doi:10.3386/w25752

Cited by 10 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…In a recent article, de Silva and Tenreyro (2019) investigates the role of changes in social norms in the fertility transition and how population policies might have changed such norms. On this, see also Beach and Hanlon (2019). We see our paper complementary to theirs.…”

Section: Related Literaturesupporting

confidence: 66%

Family Planning and Development: Aggregate Effects of Contraceptive Use

Cavalcanti

Kocharkov

Santos

2020

The Economic Journal

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What is the role of family planning interventions on fertility, savings, human capital investment, and development? To examine this, endogenous unwanted fertility is embedded in an otherwise standard quantity-quality overlapping generations model of fertility and growth. The model features costly fertility control and families can (partially) insure against a fertility risk by using costly modern contraceptives. In the event of unexpected pregnancies, households can also opt to abort some pregnancies, at a cost. Given the number of children born, parents decide how much education to provide and how much to save out of their income. We fit the model to Kenyan data, implement several family planning policies and decompose their aggregate effects. Our results suggest that with a small government budget (say, up to 0.5 percent of GDP), family planning interventions might be more cost-effective in improving long-run living standards than policies that subsidise basic education.

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Section: Related Literaturesupporting

confidence: 66%

Family Planning and Development: Aggregate Effects of Contraceptive Use

Cavalcanti

Kocharkov

Santos

2020

The Economic Journal

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“…In the 1980s, former French colonies began to promote family planning following the adoption of the resolutions of the World Population Conference held in Bucharest in 1974. The French pronatalist laws contrasted with the more liberal culture of reproductive rights in Great Britain in this period (Oliver (1995), Caldwell and Sai (2007), Beach and Hanlon (2019)).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Colonial Origins and Fertility: Can the Market Overcome History?

2022

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“…From 1860 to 1940, the average number of live births per married woman in Britain fell from six to two (Szreter, 1996). Despite decades of research across many countries, vibrant investigation into the fertility decline continues (Beach & Hanlon, 2019;Hacker, 2020;Hacker & Roberts, 2017;Jaadla et al, 2020;Klüsener et al, 2019). This continued work reflects the many unanswered questions of how and why fertility rates decline, aided by the novel insights enabled by improving data sources (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

In the name of the father? Fertility, religion and child naming in the demographic transition

Connor¹

2021

Preprint

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This article shows that parents reveal information about their fertility behavior through how they name their children. I arrive at this finding from detailed examination of the net fertility of 130,000 married couples in Ireland circa 1910, a country known for its historically high fertility rate. After stringently accounting for the occupation, religion and location of couples, I find higher fertility rates among couples who chose distinctly Catholic names and traditional names for their children, with the latter being particularly important. Exposure to towns and cities lowered net fertility and weakened preferences for traditional and Catholic names. Cumulatively, these findings highlight the role of traditional rural norms over explicitly religious influences in driving high fertility rates in Ireland. The impact of towns and cities in reducing net fertility suggests that Ireland’s sluggish urbanization was a key factor in its high historical fertility rate.

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Censorship, Family Planning, and the Historical Fertility Transition

Abstract: NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

Cited by 10 publications

References 50 publications

Family Planning and Development: Aggregate Effects of Contraceptive Use

Family Planning and Development: Aggregate Effects of Contraceptive Use

Colonial Origins and Fertility: Can the Market Overcome History?

In the name of the father? Fertility, religion and child naming in the demographic transition

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