Fertility and development: the roles of schooling and family production

Abstract

This paper presents a quantitative theory of development that highlights three mechanisms that relate schooling, fertility, and growth. First, we point out that in the early stages of development, fertility and schooling may rise together as the schooling of younger children increases their relative contribution to family income when they turn working age. Second, the model contains a supply-side theory of schooling that generates a rise in schooling independent of technological change. Third, we introduce a direct negative effect of industrialization on fertility that does not operate through human capital and the quantity-quality tradeoff. An initial quantitative assessment of the theoretical mechanisms is conducted by calibrating and applying the model to United States history from 1800 to 2000. We find that the demise in family production is an important factor reducing fertility in the 19th century and schooling of older children is dominant factor reducing fertility in the 20th century. The same model is applied to England from 1740 to 1940, where we offer two complimentary explanations for the rise in fertility from 1740 to 1820. The first is based on the rapid expansion in the cottage industry and the second on the increased relative productivity of children. We also find that the subsequent fall in fertility from 1820 to 1940 cannot be explained without introducing child labor/compulsory schooling laws. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2006Economic development, Fertility, Schooling, Family production,

Reconciling Kuznets and Habbakuk in a unified growth theory

“…This enables us to connect traditional production to fertility and schooling as suggested in other research (e.g. Carter et al 2004;Doepke 2004;Lord and Rangazas 2006).…”

Wage Gaps and Development: Lessons From U.S. History

“…To quantify schooling over the development of the U.S., we use a measure from Lord and Rangazas (2006). They estimate the time spent in school by 0-19 year-old children using data on white enrollment rates for 5-19 year olds and data on days attending school per enrolled student, both found in Goldin (1999).…”

“…The average time spent in schooling, as a fraction of the total available days, is presented in Figure 3. Source: Lord and Rangazas (2006, Table 2). …”

“…While the data does not go back to 1800, Lord and Rangazas (2006) use a historical analysis to conclude that schooling, and more importantly learning (including learning at home) and literacy, rose only moderately from 1800 to 1850.…”

“…We know from Lord and Rangazas (2006) and t s % (schooling in 1780, which determine the initial human capital stocks for parents in 1800) and the fraction of rural households that migrant to industry in 1800, were then set to match seven targets. The targets include (i) an average economy-wide fertility of 3.5 in 1800, (ii) the average time spent in school in 1880, 0.10 (the earliest year with both complete data and a sufficient distance in time from the Civil War), (iii) n =1, (iv) 1800 3.6 n = % , (v) 1800 2.4 n = , (vi) s = 0.08, and (vii) s = 0.5.…”