Varieties of Capitalism and Cross-national Variation in Fertility Rates
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19230751 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Masoud Movahed (0000-0002-5866-0285, University of California, Santa Barbara, corresponding author), Emilio A Parrado (0000-0001-5179-6502, University of Pennsylvania) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 63 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 511-536 |
| Publication date | 2026-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Demography (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0070-3370 • E-ISSN: 1533-7790 |
| Publisher | Duke University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1215/00703370-12563895 |
| PMID | 42046203 |
| OpenAlex | W7156734950 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 94 |
The institutional approach to explaining cross-national variation in demographic outcomes has gained increasing visibility in both academic research and public policy discourse. In this vein, much of the literature has focused on the effects of welfare programs on risk management and the associated costs of fertility. However, an alternative, more comprehensive perspective, namely, the “varieties of capitalism,” emphasizes the role of broader social-structural and institutional characteristics of national economies in generating socioeconomic outcomes. This perspective has not been extended to debates around cross-national differences in demographic outcomes. We fill this void by elaborating on a varieties of capitalism account of cross-national and longitudinal variation in fertility rates. Drawing on panel data spanning more than three decades (1985‒2019) across 21 countries in the Global North, we investigate how institutional factors, through the lens of the varieties of capitalism perspective, correlate with differences in total fertility rates between countries and over time. Our results demonstrate that crucial institutional dimensions, such as centralization of wage bargaining, the employment protection index, and active labor market policies, are associated with variation in total fertility rates across countries and over time
Capitalism · Fertility · Regional variation · Socioeconomic status · Total fertility rate · Variation (astronomy) · Wage · Welfare · Family Dynamics and Relationships · Global Maternal and Child Health · Social Policy and Reform Studies
Changing Capitalisms?
The Diversity of Modern Capitalism
Capital in the Twenty-First Century
Fixed Effects Regression Models
Financialization and housing
The Contingent Governance of Teams
Vanishing Children
Specification Tests in Econometrics
Family policies and low fertility in Western Europe
Varieties of Capitalism
Rich Democracies, Poor People
Globalization, Uncertainty and Women’s Mid-Career Life Courses
Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies
Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies
Collaboration in innovation
Working-class structural power, associational power, and income inequality
Changing Inequalities and Societal Impacts in Rich Countries
The End of Diversity
Divergent Capitalisms
Where is the land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States
Distributional National Accounts
The Globalization of Production and Income Inequality in Rich Democracies
Globalization and Contemporary Fertility Convergence
The institutional and cultural framing of the educational stratification in fertility. A review of the role of labor market institutions and attitudinal orientations
The impact of family policies on fertility in industrialized countries
Falling fertility rates
Financialization, labor market institutions and inequality
The World Turned Upside Down
Welfare state policy determinants of fertility level
Changing fertility rates in developed countries. The impact of labor market institutions
A note on the changing relationship between fertility and female employment rates in developed countries
Where Are the Babies? Labor Market Conditions and Fertility in Europe
Exploring Relationships between Social Policy and Changing Family Forms within the European Union
Employment Protection Legislation, Labour Market Dualism, and Fertility in Europe
Do Cross-National Differences in the Costs of Children Generate Cross-National Differences in Fertility Rates
Family policies and fertility
Migration, fertility, and aging in stable populations
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Globalization, Fertility, and Marital Behavior in a Lowest-Low Fertility Setting
Targeting, Universalism, and Single-Mother Poverty
Beyond the Great Recession
Varieties of capitalism and income inequality
Active Labour Market Policy Evaluations
The links between women’s employment and children at home
Employment Protection Legislation, Labour Market Dualism, and Inequality in Europe
On the multifaceted impact of migration on the fertility of receiving countries
Power Resources and Employer-Centered Approaches in Explanations of Welfare States and Varieties of Capitalism
Contemporary challenges to the German vocational training system
Rising Inequality and the Politics of Redistribution in Affluent Countries
Wage Bargaining, Central Bank Independence, and the Real Effects of Money
Varieties of Capitalism
When Should We Use Unit Fixed Effects Regression Models for Causal Inference with Longitudinal Data
Varieties of Capitalism and Institutional Complementarities in the Political Economy
Wage Inequality and Varieties of Capitalism
Varieties of welfare capitalism
Intrinsic Growth Rates and Net Reproduction Rates in the Presence of Migration
The varieties of capitalism paradigm
Institutional coherence and macroeconomic performance
Business and the development of job security regulations
Institutional change in varieties of capitalism
Asian business systems
Changing varieties of capitalism and revealed comparative advantages from 1990 to 2005
A Theory of Culture for Demography
Income Inequality, Equality of Opportunity, and Intergenerational Mobility
The Political Economy of the Neoliberal Transformation of French Industrial Relations
Théories de la fécondité
Women's employment and fertility in a global perspective (1960-2015)
Is a positive association between female employment and fertility still spurious in developed countries
Maximum Likelihood for Cross-lagged Panel Models with Fixed Effects
Skills and the Limits of Neo-Liberalism
Growth Models, Varieties of Capitalism, and Macroeconomics
Divergent Trends and Different Causal Logics
The effects of economic globalization on fertility in developing countries, 1990-2018
Panel Models in Sociological Research
Fertility and Women's Employment in Industrialized Nations
Unstable employment careers and (quasi-)completed fertility
Globalization and the Great U-Turn
French capitalism transformed, yet still a third variety of capitalism
Mobilizing Equal Employment Rights
Intergenerational income mobility in the United States
Women's employment and fertility
Institutions and demotions
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |