Fertility rebound and economic growth. New evidence for 18 countries over the period 1970–2011

Abstract

Long-run impact of economic growth on fertility trends is ambiguous and sensitive for in-time variations. Noticeably, over last decades, economic growth has led to significant falls in total fertility rates in many countries. However, recently, in high-income economies a kind of ‘fertility rebound’ emerged (Goldstein, 2009; Luci and Thevenon, 2011; Day, 2012), which supports the hypothesis that reversal trends in total fertility rates are mainly attributed to economic growth. The paper unveils the relationship between total fertility rate changes and economic growth in 18 selected countries with fertility rebound observed, over the period 1970–2011, and detects the GDP-threshold at which the fertility rebound emerged. To report on the relationship we deploy longitudinal data analysis assuming non-linearity between examined variables. The data applied are exclusively derived from World Development Indicators 2013. Our main findings support the hypothesis on U-shaped relationship between the total fertility rate and economic growth in analyzed countries in 1970-2011. Along with the previous, we project the minimum level of GDP per capita (GDP-threshold) when the fertility rebound takes place.