Economic Uncertainty and Fertility

Giray Gözgör, Mehmet Bilgin and Peter Rangazas

No 360, GLO Discussion Paper Series from Global Labor Organization (GLO)

Abstract: In this paper, we conduct an empirical study of the effect of uncertainty on fertility. The precautionary motive for saving predicts that an increase in uncertainty increases saving by reducing both consumption and fertility. We use a new measure of uncertainty, the World Uncertainty Index, and focus on data from 126 countries for the period from 1996 to 2017. The empirical findings indicate that uncertainty shocks decrease the fertility rate. This evidence is robust to different model specifications and econometric techniques as well as to the inclusion of various controls.

Keywords: Fertility; Uncertainty; WUI Index; Precautionary Saving; Business Cycle; Panel Data Estimation Techniques (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C33 D14 D81 E32 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/199088/1/GLO-DP-0360.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Economic Uncertainty and Fertility (2021)
Working Paper: Economic Uncertainty and Fertility (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:glodps:360

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in GLO Discussion Paper Series from Global Labor Organization (GLO) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().