Intergenerational Transmission of Fertility Patterns*
| Author | Alison L. Booth,Hiau Joo Kee |
| Date | 01 April 2009 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0084.2008.00524.x |
| Published date | 01 April 2009 |
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©Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the Department of Economics, University of Oxford, 2008. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
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OXFORD BULLETIN OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS, 71, 2 (2009) 0305-9049
doi: 10.1111/j.1468-0084.2008.00524.x
Intergenerational Transmission of Fertility
PatternsÅ
Alison L. Booth† and Hiau Joo Kee‡
†Economics Program, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia
and Economics Department, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park CO4 3SQ, UK
(e-mail: alison.booth@anu.edu.au)
‡Economics Program, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia
(e-mail: hiau.kee@anu.edu.au)
Abstract
Recent studies by economists have focused on cultural transmission from the origin
country rather than the origin family. Our paper extends this research by investigating
how family-specific ‘cultural transmission’ can affect fertility rates. Following
Machado and Santos Silva [Journal of the American Statistical Association (2005)
Vol. 100, p. 1226] and Miranda [Journal of Population Economics (2008) Vol. 21,
p. 67], we estimate count data quantile regression models using the British Household
Panel Survey. We find that a woman’s origin-family size is positively associated with
completed fertility in her destination family.A woman’s country of birth also matters
for her fertility. For a sub-sample of continuously partnered men and women, both
partners’ origin-family sizes significantly affect destination-family fertility.
I. Introduction
Demographers and sociologists have, for over 100 years, been interested in
intergenerational fertility patterns (for example see Pearson and Lee, 1899). Genetic
*For their helpful suggestions we thank the Editor John Knight and the anonymous referee. We are also
grateful to Wiji Arulampalam, John Ermisch,Alfonso Miranda, Joao Santos Silva, and seminar participants
at the Australian National University, the Society of Labor Economists Chicago Meetings in May 2007, and
the European Society of Population Economics Meetings in Chicago in June 2007. Special thanks are due to
Alfonso Miranda for providing us with his code. The data were made available through the UK Data Archive
and were originally collected by the ESRC Research Centre on Micro-social Change at the University of Essex,
now incorporated within the Institute for Social and Economic Research. Neither the original collectors of the
data nor the Archive bear any responsibility for the analyses or interpretations presented here. HJ Kee would
like to thank the University of Essex for its hospitality. Part of the research was funded by anARC Discovery
Project Grant.
JEL Classification numbers: I2, J1.
184 Bulletin
differences in the desire to have children or in the ability to have them were initially
stressed.1Subsequent studies emphasized intergenerational transmission of contra-
ceptive technologies and know-how, while others argued that this information might
be transmitted from the relevant peer group rather than from mother to daughter.
Other studies highlighted the role that origin-family norms might play a role in affect-
ing children’s subsequent family-planning decisions. Fertility norms of other refer-
ence groups – based on friendship, ethnicity, social class and religion – have also
been emphasized (Westoff and Potvin, 1967). Following Bisin and Verdier (2000,
2001), we label these norms or preferences as ‘culture’ and the transmission of these
norms across generations as ‘cultural transmission’. These influences are our primary
interest.
Since economists typically assume that preferences are beyond the scope of their
analysis, it is perhaps unsurprising that there has been relatively little work by eco-
nomists on cultural transmission. Instead, economists focused on other aspects of
fertility, especially the relationship between fertility and investments in human capi-
tal.2This is typically modelled in a choice-theoretic framework (see inter alia Willis,
1973; Becker and Lewis, 1973; Ermisch, 2003). Parents choose the number Nand
quality Qof offspring (where child quality might be the child’s lifetime well-being or
educational attainment) and they regard Qand Nas imperfect substitutes. All children
in the family are assumed to be treated equally. Parents maximize a unitary family
utility function – whose arguments include parental consumption as well as Nand
Q– subject to a budget constraint that is nonlinear when plotted in (Q,N) space. Since
children are a normal good, as family income increases parents want more of them.
But the pure income effect on Nis partially offset by substitution effects (the cost
of children increases through higher quality). So the net effect depends on relative
elasticities. It is generally argued that the income elasticity of Nis probably smaller
than of Q, so that increases in family income will have a bigger effect on Qthan N.
Mothers typically look after children and hence, as female wages increase, both N
and Qwill be reduced if the opportunity cost of higher female wages dominates the
family income effect.
This relationship between child quality and quantity is not the focus of our paper,
although it informs our decision of what variables to include in the empirical analysis.
Instead, our interest is in investigating the degree to which completed fertility patterns
are correlated across generations. In other words, we are interested in how prefer-
ences in the origin-family affect preferences for children in the destination family
1More recently, genetics influences are again being explored; see for example Rodgers et al. (2001), Miller
et al. (1999), Kohler, Rodgers and Christensen (1999), and Guo and Tong (2006). When fertility norms and
birth control technology do little to constrain individuals’ fertility choices, genetics may play an important
role in fertility outcomes (Kohler et al., 1999). While our data source does not allow us to explore this genetic
component, it does provide important new information about origin-family characteristics including family
size.
2See Becker (1960), Becker and Barro (1988), Becker and Lewis (1973), Becker and Tomes (1976),
Hanushek (1992), Ermisch (2003) and Willis (1973). The relationship between fertility and life expectancy
has also been explored by economists; see inter alia Lee (2003) and Livi-Bacci (2001).
©Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the Department of Economics, University of Oxford 2008
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