Contraception and the Demographic Transition

Joydeep Bhattacharya and Shankha Chakraborty

ISU General Staff Papers from Iowa State University, Department of Economics

Abstract: 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.

Date: 2016-11-01
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Journal Article: Contraception and the Demographic Transition (2017)
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