Contraception and the Demographic Transition

Bibliographic Data

ID9706906
AuthorsJoydeep Bhattacharya (0000-0002-3148-4592, Iowa State University), Shankha Chakraborty (0000-0002-6732-1621, University of Oregon)
Year2017
Volume127
Issue606
Pages2263-2301
Publication date2017-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Economic Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0013-0133 • E-ISSN: 1468-0297
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/ecoj.12431
OpenAlexW2523296858
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited45

Inspired by the historical English experience, we modify the Beckerian paradigm of fertility by incorporating costly, societal influence on contraception. Heterogeneous, generationally‐linked households choose between ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ contraception. The modern has a higher fixed but lower variable cost of averting childbirths. Initially the rich adopt the modern, which unleashes society‐wide diffusion. Eventually everyone switches, lowering fertility further and across households. Hastening the switch is falling child mortality. Quantitative experiments suggest contraception was a vital link between the historical mortality and fertility transitions, though not the latter’s proximate cause. Implications for more recent transitions are discussed

Biology · Demographic economics · Demographic transition · Economics · Environmental health · Falling (accident · Fertility · Political science · Population · Proximate and ultimate causation · Sociology · Transition (genetics · Demography · Family Dynamics and Relationships · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Law · Medicine