Gender Gaps in Completed Fertility

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 AbstractThe most commonly used measure of reproductive behavior is the total fertility rate (TFR), which is a measure of the number of children born per woman. However, almost no work exists measuring the fertility behavior of men. In this paper we use survey data from several recent waves of the Demographic and Health Surveys in six developing countries in which men and women were each asked about their reproductive histories. We document a number of interesting differences in fertility outcomes of men and women. First, while one might have thought that average rates for men and women must coincide, we find that this is not the case. Comparing completed fertility by birth cohorts, we find that on average men have more children than women in four out of the six countries we consider. The gaps are large -reaching up to 4.6 children in Burkina Faso for the 1944-48 birth cohort. We show that positive gaps are possible when populations are growing and men father children with younger women. Such a situation often coincides with polygyny, i.e. men having children with more than one woman. Indeed we find that the size of the fertility gap is positively related to the degree of polygyny in the country. Second, we find a higher variance in fertility rates for men than for women. In other words, women are more similar to each other in reproductive behavior than men are to one another. Third, we find that differences in the desire to have children can largely be explained by differences in realized fertility.This implies that differences in fertility preferences often emphasized in the literature do not necessarily need to cause conflict, as men and women can realize their fertility individually.Finally, we find that for men, the demographic transition started earlier and was steeper than for women. These novel facts are useful when building theories of fertility choice. * We would like to thank Pascal Schmidt and Inken Toewe for excellent research assistance. We also thank seminar participants at the University of Mannheim for valuable comments.

Measuring male fertility rates in developing countries with Demographic and Health Surveys: An assessment of three methods

“…The apparent inconsistencies between male and female total fertility rates have been discussed previously in several papers (Field et al 2016;Pison 1982;Vallin and Caselli 2001). These differences in total fertility are related to the large differences in the age at which men and women have their children, and to the differences in the number of men and women at the ages when they have their children (Field et al 2016;Vallin and Caselli 2001).…”

“…These differences in total fertility are related to the large differences in the age at which men and women have their children, and to the differences in the number of men and women at the ages when they have their children (Field et al 2016;Vallin and Caselli 2001). The differences in the number of men and women in turn depend mainly -when migration is limited -on the population growth rate and on the differences in survival to these ages.…”

“…This will often be accompanied by polygyny, although this is not a necessary condition for these large differences between male and female fertility (Field et al 2016). By contrast, in cases where the mean age at fatherhood and the mean age at childbearing are close, the differences between the total fertility rates will be small.…”

“…The focus on female fertility is explained by a variety of factors, including the implicit assumption that spouses share identical reproductive interests and behaviors (Greene and Biddlecom 2000), lack of data, quality problems with male fertility data, and the fact that the reproductive age range is less clearly defined for males than for females (Andro and Desgrées du Loû 2009;Estee 2004;Field et al 2016;Greene and Biddlecom 2000;Paget and Timaeus 1994;Ratcliffe, Hill, and Walraven 2000;Zhang 2011). Male fertility data is available in many Western countries through civil registration and vital statistics systems (CRVS), and these have been used in a number of studies on male fertility in developed countries (Brouard 1977;Dudel and Klüsener 2016;Lognard 2010;Tragaki and Bagavos 2014;United Nations 2013;Zhang 2011).…”

“…In these countries, demographic accounts of male fertility are mainly available at the local or regional level (Donadjé 1992a;Hertrich 1996;Pison 1982;Pison 1986;Ratcliffe, Hill, and Walraven 2000), or based on data on the number of children ever born (Blanc and Gage 2000;Ezeh, Seroussi, and Raggers 1996;Field et al 2016;Johnson and Gu 2009;Macro International 1997). These few studies have shown that the levels and patterns of male and female fertility may differ widely (Donadjé 1992b;Donadjé 1992a;Pison 1986;Ratcliffe, Hill, and Walraven 2000).…”