The fertility rebound: evidence from 15 european countries.

Abstract

The relation between population growth and income was intensively first examined by Thomas R. Malthus. Malthus argued that the standard of living has a positive effect on the growth rate of population. Since then, a lot of studies have endeavored to detect and explain the link between fertility and socio-economic development. Empirical studies suggest that economic growth, which experienced most of the European countries since 1960, is associated with declining fertility rates. The well-established negative association of fertility with economic and social development was questioned by the pioneer study of Myrskyla et al.(2009). In their influential work, the authors claim that advances in socio-economic development can reverse the fertility rates and thus the development-fertility relation becomes J-shaped. In this study, focusing on the wealthiest countries of Europe for the period 1960-2013, we demonstrate the reversal in the aforementioned relation and moreover we stress the role of the increasing old reproductive-age in the fertility rebound. We present evidence, by calculating the age specific rates (ASFRs) for the cohort ages between 15-29 and 30-49, that the older age drives the fertility rebound. We also examine the factors behind GDP per capita that are responsible for the observed fertility trends as well as the source of the observed non-linearity.