Economic Growth with Below-Replacement Fertility

Bibliographic Data

ID4120889
AuthorsGeoffrey Mcnicoll (corresponding author)
Year1986
Volume12
Pages217
Publication date1986-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePopulation and Development Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0098-7921 • E-ISSN: 1728-4457
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2807904
OpenAlexW2073367676
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited27

A demographic Laffer curve, discovered, let us imagine, sketched on a tablecloth in the Hoover Institution canteen, tells us that sixchild families are bad for business and zero children bad for business, but somewhere in between is a fertility regime under which the economy can optimally thrive. Little more than a decade ago the US Commission on Population and the American Future explored the implications of the choice between three- and two-child families. In the economic arena the Commissioners' conclusion was unqualified: we find no convincing economic argument for continued national population growth. On the contrary most of the pluses are on the side of slower growth (US Commission, 1972: 40-41). A two-child average was to be welcomed. It soon came, and passed-with scant respect for the convention, embodied in most population projections, by which demographic transition ends comfortably on a floor of replacement-level fertility. A population commission set up in the late 1980s would have the task of examining two- versus one-child family averages-the latter, most would expect, likely to be found to lie clearly on the downward gradient of the Laffer curve. In this article I take continuing below-replacement fertility as the premise and look to identify and weigh economic outcomes that plausibly follow. My interest is in the industrialized countries, principally the United States. As in a number of prior studies, the effects of low fertility on labor supply, technological change, and investment and consumption appear relatively slight.' I shall argue, however, that there are serious, potentially adverse, economic consequences of low fertility, chiefly found in the distributional changes that are generated or accentuated under these demographic circumstances and in the international setting in which low-fertility countries will find themselves

Economics · Fertility · Population · Sociology · Demography · Economic Growth and Productivity · Family Dynamics and Relationships · Insurance, Mortality, Demography, Risk Management

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