Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-t27h7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-17T12:03:20.672Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

GENDER GAPS IN COMPLETED FERTILITY*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2016

Erica Field ,
Vera Molitor ,
Alice Schoonbroodt  and
Michèle Tertilt
Erica Field
Affiliation:
Duke University
Vera Molitor
Affiliation:
University of Mannheim
Alice Schoonbroodt*
Affiliation:
The University of Iowa
Michèle Tertilt
Affiliation:
University of Mannheim
*
Address correspondence to: Alice Schoonbroodt, Department of Economics, The University of Iowa, W210 Pappajohn Business Building, Iowa City, IA 52241; email: [email protected].
Get access

Abstract:

The most common measure of reproductive behavior is the total fertility rate, which measures children born per woman. However, little work exists measuring male fertility behavior. We use survey data from several waves of the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) in eight Sub-Saharan African countries. We document several interesting differences in fertility outcomes of men and women. First, comparing completed fertility by birth cohorts, we find that on average men have more children than women in seven out of eight countries we consider. The gaps are large – reaching up to 4.6 children in Burkina Faso. Positive gaps are possible when populations are growing and men father children with younger women. Such a situation often coincides with polygyny. Indeed, we find that the fertility gap is positively related to the degree of polygyny. Second, we find a lower variance in completed fertility rates for women than for men, especially in high polygyny countries. Third, we find that differences in the desire to have children can largely be explained by differences in realized fertility. 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 behavior.

Type
Research Papers
Information
Journal of Demographic Economics , Volume 82 , Issue 2 , June 2016 , pp. 167 - 206
Copyright
Copyright © Université catholique de Louvain 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

We would like to thank Katarina Kuske, Pascal Schmidt, and Inken Toewe for excellent research assistance. We also thank seminar participants at the University of Mannheim, the EEA conference 2015 and the Vereinstagung 2016 for valuable comments. We would also like to thank the editor, David de la Croix, and four anonymous referees for helpful comments. Financial Support from ERC Starting Grant 313719 is gratefully acknowledged.

References

REFERENCES

Agajanian, Victor (2002) Men's talk about “Women's Matters” gender, communication, and contraception in Urban mozambique. Gender & Society 16, 194–215.Google Scholar
Ashraf, Nava, Field, Erica, and Lee, Jean (2013) Household bargaining and excess fertility: an experimental study in Zambia. American Economic Review 104 (7), 2210–37.Google Scholar
Bankole, Akinrinola and Singh, Susheela (1998) Couples’ fertility and contraceptive decision-making in developing countries: Hearing the Man's voice. International Family Planning Perspectives 24 (1), 15–24.Google Scholar
Bongaarts, John (2008) Fertility transitions in developing countries: Progress or stagnation? Studies in Family Planning 39 (2), 105–110.Google Scholar
Boschini, Anne, Håkanson, Christina, Rosén, Åsa, and Sjögren, Anna (2011) Trading Off or Having it All? Completed Fertility and Mid-Career Earnings of Swedish Men and Women. Working Paper Series 2011:15, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.Google Scholar
Casterline, John B. (2001) The pace of fertility transition: National patterns in the second half of the twentieth century. Population and Development Review 27, 17–52.Google Scholar
Cohen, Barney (1998) The emerging fertility transition in Sub-Saharan Africa. World Development 26 (8), 1431–1461.Google Scholar
De la Croix, David and Doepke, Matthias (2003) Inequality and growth: Why differential fertility matters. American Economic Review 93 (4), 1091–1113.Google Scholar
Del Boca, Daniela, Flinn, Christopher, and Wiswall, Matthew (2014) Household choices and child development. Review of Economic Studies 81 (1), 137–85.Google Scholar
Doepke, Matthias and Kindermann, Fabian (2013) Bargaining over babies. Unpublished Manuscript, Northwestern University.Google Scholar
Eijkemans, Marinus J. C., van Poppel, Frans, Habbema, Dik F., Smith, Ken R., Leridon, Henri, and te Velde, Egbert R. (2014) Too old to have children? Lessons from natural fertility populations. Human Reproduction 29 (6), 1304–1312.Google Scholar
Fikree, Fariyal F., Gray, Ronald H., and Shah, Farida (1993) Can men be trusted? A comparison of pregnancy histories reported by husbands and wives. American Journal of Epidemiology 138 (4), 237–242.Google Scholar
Garenne, Michel, Mbaye, Khadidiatou, Diawo Bah, Mohamed, and Correa, Paul (1997) Risk factors for maternal mortality: A case-control study in Dakar hospitals (Senegal). African Journal of Reproductive Health 1 (1), 14–24.Google Scholar
Greene, Margaret E. and Biddlecom, Ann E.. 2000 Absent and problematic men: Demographic accounts of male reproductive roles. Population and Development Review 26, 81–115.Google Scholar
Greenwood, Jermey, Guner, Nezih, and Vandenbroucke, Guillaume (2016) Family economics writ large. Journal of Economic Literature, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Guzzo, Karen Benjamin and Furstenberg, Frank F. (2007) Multipartnered fertility among american men. Demography 44, 583–601.Google Scholar
Harris, Isiah D., Fronczak, Carolyn, Roth, Lauren, and Meacham, Randall B. (2011) Fertility and the aging male. Reviews in Urology 13 (4), 184–190.Google ScholarPubMed
Hertrich, Véronique (1998) Are men's and women's answers to be equally trusted? A dual collection of birth and marriage histories in a population in Mali. Population: An English Selection 10 (2), 303–318.Google Scholar
Johnson, Kiersten and Gu, Yuan (2009) Men's reproductive health: Findings from demographic and health surveys, 1995–2004. Comparative Reports 17, DHS, Calverton, Maryland, USA: ICF Macro.Google Scholar
Jones, Larry E., Schoonbroodt, Alice, and Tertilt, Michèle (2010) Fertility theories: Can they explain the negative fertility-income relationship? In Shoven, John B. (ed.), Demography and the Economy, pp. 43–100. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, USA.Google Scholar
Jones, Larry E. and Tertilt, Michèle (2008) An economic history of fertility in the U.S.: 1826–1960. In Rupert, Peter (ed.), Frontiers of Family Economics, pp. 165–230. Elsevier, Amsterdam: North Holland.Google Scholar
Karmel, Peter Henry (1949) Le conflit entre les mesures masculine et féminine de la reproduction. Population (French Edition) 4 (3), 471–494.Google Scholar
Kidd, Sharon A., Eskenazi, Brenda, and Wyrobek, Andrew J. (2001) Effects of male age on semen quality and fertility: a review of the literature. Fertility and Sterility 75 (2), 237–248.Google Scholar
Kremer, Michael and Chen, Daniel L.. 2002. Income distribution dynamics with endogenous fertility. Journal of Economic Growth 7 (3), 227–258.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kunze, Astrid (2014) Are All of the Good Men Fathers? The Effect of Having Children on Earnings. IZA Discussion Paper Series No. 8113.Google Scholar
Lappegård, Trude and Rønsen, Marit (2011) Socioeconomic Differentials in Multi-partner Fertility Among Men. Discussion Papers Statistics Norway, Research Department 653.Google Scholar
Lotka, Alfred J. (1939) Théorie analytique des associations biologiques. Paris: Hermann.Google Scholar
Mason, Karen Oppenheim and Taj, Anju Malhotra (1987) Differences between Women's and Men's reproductive goals in developing countries. Population and Development Review 13 (4), 611–638.Google Scholar
McKinlay, Sonja M., Brambilla, Donald J., and Posner, Jennifer G. (1992) The normal menopause transition. Maturitas 14, 103–115.Google Scholar
Mott, Frank L. and Mott, Susan H. (1985) Household fertility decision in West Africa: a comparison of male and female survey results. Studies in Family Planning 16 (2), 88–99.Google ScholarPubMed
Neelakantan, Urvi and Tertilt, Michèle (2008) A note on marriage market clearing. Economic Letters 101, 103–105.Google Scholar
Pison, Gilles (1986) La Démographie De La Polygamie. Population (French Edition) 41 (1), 93–122.Google Scholar
Puur, Allan, Oláh, Livia Sz., Tazi-Preve, Mariam Irene, and Dorbritz, Jürgen (2008) Men's childbearing desires and views of the male role in Europe at the dawn of the 21st century. Demographic Research 19, 1883–1912.Google Scholar
Rasul, Imran (2008) Household bargaining over fertility: Theory and evidence from Malaysia. Journal of Development Economics 86 (2), 215–241.Google Scholar
Ratcliffe, Amy A., Hill, Allan G., Harrington, David P., and Walraven, Gijs (2002) Reporting of fertility events by men and women in rural Gambia. Demography 39 (3), 573–586.Google Scholar
Rendall, Michael S., Clarke, Lynda, Peters, H. Elizabeth, Ranjit, Nalini, and Verropoulou, Georgia (1999) Incomplete reporting of men's fertility in the United States and Britain: a research note. Demography 36 (1), 135–144.Google Scholar
Schoonbroodt, Alice (2016) Parental Child Care During and Outside of Typical work Hours. Working paper. University of Iowa.Google Scholar
Sidibe, E. H. (2005) La ménopause en Afrique. Annales d'Endocrinologie 66 (2), 105–107.Google Scholar
Tertilt, Michèle (2005) Polygyny, fertility, and savings. Journal of Political Economy 113 (6), 1341–1371.Google Scholar
United Nations (2015) World population prospects: The 2015 revision. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division.Google Scholar
Voas, David (2004) Conflicting preferences: a reason fertility tends to be too high or too low. Population and Development Review 29 (4), 627–646.Google Scholar
Vogl, Tom (2016) Differential fertility, human capital, and development. Review of Economic Studies 83 (1), 365–401.Google Scholar
Westoff, Charles and Higgins, Jenny (2009) Relationships between men's gender attitudes and fertility: Response to Puur et al.’s “Men's childbearing desires and views of the male role in Europe at the dawn of the 21st century”. Demographic Research 21, 65–74.Google Scholar
Zhang, Li (2011) Male Fertility Patterns and Determinants, vol. 27, The Springer Series on Demographic Methods and Population Analysis, Springer Netherlands.Google Scholar