Endogenous Fertility With a Sibship Size Effect

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractSince the seminal work of Becker, the dynamics of endogenous fertility has been based on the trade-off faced by parents between the quantity and the quality of their children. However, in developing countries, when child labor is an indispensable source of household income, parents actually incur a negative cost for having an extra child, so that the trade-off disappears. The purpose of this paper is to restore the Beckerian quantity-quality trade-off when intergenerational transfers are upstream, so as to keep fertility endogenous. We do that by adding a negative "sibship size effect" on human capital formation to the standard Becker model. With a simple specification, we obtain multiplicity of steady states or, more fundamentally, the possibility of a jump from a state with high fertility and low income to a state with low fertility and high income, triggered by a continuous increase in the productivity of human capital formation.

Longevity and Technological Change

“…2. See, for instance, Brezis and Dos Santos Ferreira (2016) for an analysis of endogenous fertility and Diene et al (2016) for a study of human capital accumulation.…”

Sibship size and the biological standard of living in industrial Catalonia, c.1860–c.1920: a case study

“…In addition, it argues that the relationship between the number (quantity) of children ever born to a family and the amount spent on them (quality) tends to be negative; it also suggests that the increase in per capita income triggers fertility decline. Recently, Brezis and Dos Santos (2015) added a negative sibship size effect to the Beckerian model of endogenous fertility.…”

Family Size, Sibling Rivalry and Migration: Evidence from Mexico

“…Hence, a reallocation of resources from children to parents may become necessary so that young household members are dispatched abroad in order to send remittances or offer potential support back home. In particular, if children contribute to family welfare either through child-labor, economic diversification or parental-care, then a larger number of siblings may have a positive effect on the out-migration of one (or more) of them (Brezis and Ferreira 2016). The relative strength of these competing effects of family size is ultimately an empirical matter.…”