Born Supremacy
How the West 'Invented' Fertility Restriction
Nico Voigtländer & Hans-Joachim Voth
NBER Working Paper, August 2011
Abstract:
Europeans restricted their fertility long before the 'Demographic Transition.' By raising the marriage age of women and ensuring that a substantial proportion remained celibate, the "European Marriage Pattern" (EMP) reduced childbirths by up to 40% between the 14th and 18th century. In a Malthusian environment, this translated into lower population pressure, raising average wages significantly, which in turn laid the foundation for industrialization. We analyze the rise of this first socio-economic institution in history that limited fertility through delayed marriage. Our model emphasizes changes in agricultural production following the Black Death in 1348-50. The land-intensive production of meat, wool, and dairy (pastoral products) increased, while labor-intensive grain production declined. Women had a comparative advantage producing pastoral goods. They often worked as servants in husbandry, where they remained unmarried long after they had left the parental household. The emergence of EMP enabled Europe to shift from a high-fertility, low income to a low-fertility, high income Malthusian steady state. We demonstrate the importance of this effect in a calibration of our model and show why the same shock to population did not have similar consequences in China.
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Long-term health effects on the next generation of Ramadan fasting during pregnancy
Reyn van Ewijk
Journal of Health Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Each year, many pregnant Muslim women fast during Ramadan. Using Indonesian cross-sectional data and building upon work of Almond & Mazumder (2011), I show that people who were prenatally exposed to Ramadan fasting have a poorer general health than others. As predicted by medical theory, this effect is especially pronounced among older people, who also more often report symptoms indicative of coronary heart problems and type 2 diabetes. Among exposed Muslims the share of males is lower, which is most likely caused by death before birth. I show that these effects are unlikely the result of common health shocks correlated to the occurrence of Ramadan, or of fasting mainly occurring among women who would have had unhealthier children anyway.
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Maternal Defense: Breast Feeding Increases Aggression by Reducing Stress
Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Mothers in numerous species exhibit heightened aggression in defense of their young. This shift typically coincides with the duration of lactation in nonhuman mammals, which suggests that human mothers may display similarly accentuated aggressiveness while breast feeding. Here we report the first behavioral evidence for heightened aggression in lactating humans. Breast-feeding mothers inflicted louder and longer punitive sound bursts on unduly aggressive confederates than did formula-feeding mothers or women who had never been pregnant. Maternal aggression in other mammals is thought to be facilitated by the buffering effect of lactation on stress responses. Consistent with the animal literature, our results showed that while lactating women were aggressing, they exhibited lower systolic blood pressure than did formula-feeding or never-pregnant women while they were aggressing. Mediation analyses indicated that reduced arousal during lactation may disinhibit female aggression. Together, our results highlight the contributions of breast feeding to both protecting infants and buffering maternal stress.
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Killing Me Softly: The Fetal Origins Hypothesis
Douglas Almond & Janet Currie
Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2011, Pages 153-172
Abstract:
In the epidemiological literature, the fetal origins hypothesis associated with David J. Barker posits that chronic, degenerative conditions of adult health, including heart disease and type 2 diabetes, may be triggered by circumstances decades earlier, particularly, by in utero nutrition. Economists have expanded on this hypothesis, investigating a broader range of fetal shocks and circumstances and have found a wealth of later-life impacts on outcomes including test scores, educational attainment, and income, along with health. In the process, they have provided some of the most credible observational evidence in support of the hypothesis. The magnitude of the impacts is generally large. Thus, the fetal origins hypothesis has not only survived contact with economics, but has flourished.
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Martha Bailey
NBER Working Paper, August 2011
Abstract:
Almost 50 years after domestic U.S. family planning programs began, their effects on childbearing remain controversial. Using the county-level roll-out of these programs from 1964 to 1973, this paper reevaluates their shorter- and longer-term effects on U.S. fertility rates. I find that the introduction of family planning is associated with significant and persistent reductions in fertility driven both by falling completed childbearing and childbearing delay. Although federally-funded family planning accounted for a small portion of the post-baby boom U.S. fertility decline, the estimates imply that they reduced childbearing among poor women by 21 to 29 percent.
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Why Do Mothers Breastfeed Girls Less than Boys? Evidence and Implications for Child Health in India
Seema Jayachandran & Ilyana Kuziemko
Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 2011, Pages 1485-1538
Abstract:
Breastfeeding is negatively correlated with future fertility because nursing temporarily reduces fecundity and because mothers usually wean on becoming pregnant again. We model breastfeeding under son-biased fertility preferences and show that breastfeeding duration increases with birth order, especially near target family size; is lowest for daughters and children without older brothers because their parents try again for a son; and exhibits the largest gender gap near target family size, when gender is most predictive of subsequent fertility. Data from India confirm each prediction. Moreover, child survival exhibits similar patterns, especially in settings where the alternatives to breastmilk are unsanitary.
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Social Security, Differential Fertility, and the Dynamics of the Earnings Distribution
Kai Zhao
B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, August 2011
Abstract:
Economists and demographers have long argued that fertility differs by income (differential fertility), and that social security creates incentives for people to rear fewer children. Does the effect of social security on fertility differ by income? Does social security further affect the dynamics of the earnings distribution through its differential effects on fertility? We answer these questions in a three-period OLG model with heterogeneous agents and endogenous fertility. We find that given its redistributional property, social security reduces fertility of the poor proportionally more than it reduces fertility of the rich. Assuming that earning ability is transmitted from parents to children, the differential effects of social security on fertility can have a significant impact on the dynamics of the earnings distribution: a relatively lower fertility rate among the poor can lead to a new earnings distribution with a smaller portion of poor people and a higher average earnings level. With reasonable parameter values, our numerical exercise shows that the effects of social security on differential fertility and the dynamics of the earnings distribution are quantitatively important.
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Sue Middleton
Sexuality Research and Social Policy, September 2011, Pages 227-238
Abstract:
Teenage pregnancy has been the subject of recent policy development within the British government. Viewed from an overwhelmingly negative standpoint, young parenthood is recognised as a feature of impoverished communities while policies focus on technical and educational ‘solutions' to reduce the levels of conceptions to under-18. Narrative research was undertaken to listen to the experiences of a small group of young women within individual interviews, with the aim of understanding the meanings of pregnancy for them. Childhood experiences and individual adversity were found to be the structuring features of most of the narratives obtained from the young women. The narratives also revealed a highly restorative aspect to pregnancy and motherhood, connected to overcoming earlier experiences. This appeared to suggest meanings for early pregnancy and parenthood for young women at odds with governmental policy direction, calling into question the focus on reduction that dominates current policy thinking.
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Susan Golombok et al.
Developmental Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Each year, an increasing number of children are born through surrogacy and thus lack a genetic and/or gestational link with their mother. This study examined the impact of surrogacy on mother-child relationships and children's psychological adjustment. Assessments of maternal positivity, maternal negativity, mother-child interaction, and child adjustment were administered to 32 surrogacy, 32 egg donation, and 54 natural conception families with a 7-year-old child. No differences were found for maternal negativity, maternal positivity, or child adjustment, although the surrogacy and egg donation families showed less positive mother-child interaction than the natural conception families. The findings suggest that both surrogacy and egg donation families function well in the early school years.
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The Effect of Interventions to Reduce Fertility on Economic Growth
Quamrul Ashraf, David Weil & Joshua Wilde
NBER Working Paper, August 2011
Abstract:
We assess quantitatively the effect of exogenous reductions in fertility on output per capita. Our simulation model allows for effects that run through schooling, the size and age structure of the population, capital accumulation, parental time input into child-rearing, and crowding of fixed natural resources. The model is parameterized using a combination of microeconomic estimates, data on demographics and natural resource income in developing countries, and standard components of quantitative macroeconomic theory. We apply the model to examine the effect of an intervention that immediately reduces TFR by 1.0, using current Nigerian vital rates as a baseline. For a base case set of parameters, we find that an immediate decline in the TFR of 1.0 will raise output per capita by approximately 13.2 percent at a horizon of 20 years, and by 25.4 percent at a horizon of 50 years.
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Christine Dehlendorf et al.
Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, September 2011, Pages 181-187
Context: The extent to which racial and ethnic differences in method choice are associated with financial barriers is unclear. Understanding these associations may provide insight into how to address racial and ethnic disparities in unintended pregnancy.
Methods: Claims data from the California Family PACT program, which provides free family planning services to low-income residents, were used to determine the proportions of women receiving each type of contraceptive method in 2001-2007. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed to identify associations between women's race and ethnicity and the primary contraceptive method they received in 2007.
Results: Compared with white women, blacks and Latinas were less likely to receive oral contraceptives (odds ratios, 0.4 and 0.6, respectively) and the contraceptive ring (0.7 and 0.5), and more likely to receive the injectable (1.6 and 1.4) and the patch (1.6 and 2.3). Black women were less likely than whites to receive the IUD (0.5), but more likely to receive barrier methods and emergency contraceptive pills (2.6); associations were similar, though weaker, for Latinas. Racial and ethnic disparities in receipt of effective methods declined between 2001 and 2005, largely because receipt of the patch (which was introduced in 2002) was higher among minority than white women.
Conclusion: Although Family PACT eliminates financial barriers to method choice, the methods women received differed substantially by race and ethnicity in this low-income population. The reduction in racial and ethnic disparities following introduction of the patch suggests that methods with novel characteristics may increase acceptability of contraceptives among minority women.
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Sex Ratio at Birth and Mortality Rates Are Negatively Related in Humans
Madhukar Shivajirao Dama
PLoS ONE, August 2011, e23792
Abstract:
Evolutionary theory posits that resource availability and parental investment ability could signal offspring sex selection, in order to maximize reproductive returns. Non-human studies have provided evidence for this phenomenon, and maternal condition around the time of conception has been identified as most important factor that influence offspring sex selection. However, studies on humans have reported inconsistent results, mostly due to use of disparate measures as indicators of maternal condition. In the present study, the cross-cultural differences in human natal sex ratio were analyzed with respect to indirect measures of condition namely, life expectancy and mortality rate. Multiple regression modeling suggested that mortality rates have distinct predictive power independent of cross-cultural differences in fertility, wealth and latitude that were earlier shown to predict sex ratio at birth. These findings suggest that sex ratio variation in humans may relate to differences in parental and environmental conditions.
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Amy Murphy et al.
Personality and Individual Differences, November 2011, Pages 812-816
Abstract:
Pregnant women are subjected to popular and official advice to restrict their behaviour in ways that may not always be warranted by medical evidence. The present paper investigates the role of sexism in the proscriptive stance toward pregnancy. Consistent with expectations, both hostile and benevolent sexism were associated with endorsement of proscriptive rules such as "pregnant women should not take strenuous exercise" (Study 1, n = 148). Also as predicted, hostile but not benevolent sexism was associated with punitive attitudes to pregnant women who flout proscriptions (Study 2, n = 124). In tandem with recent findings, the present results show that hostile as well as benevolent sexism is associated with proscriptive attitudes surrounding pregnancy.
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Is the Quantity-Quality Trade-Off a Trade-Off for All, None, or Some?
Daniel Millimet & Le Wang
Economic Development and Cultural Change, October 2011, Pages 155-195
Abstract:
Although the theoretical trade-off between the quantity and quality of children is well established, empirical evidence supporting such a causal relationship - particularly on child health - is limited. We use two measures of child health to assess the quantity-quality trade-off across the entire distribution. Using data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey and controlling for the potential endogeneity of child quantity, we find modest, statistically meaningful evidence of a causal trade-off.
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Public Policies, Women's Employment after Childbearing, and Child Well-Being
Elizabeth Washbrook et al.
B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, July 2011
Abstract:
In this paper, we consider three U.S. public policies that potentially influence the work decisions of mothers of infants - parental leave laws, exemptions from welfare work requirements, and child care subsidies for low-income families. We estimate the effects of these policies on the timing of work participation after birth, and on a range of outcomes in the subsequent four years, using a group difference-in-difference technique suitable for analysis of cross-sectional data. We find that the three policies affect early maternal work participation, but obtain no evidence of significant consequences for child well-being.
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Paternal Transmission of Stress-Induced Pathologies
David Dietz et al.
Biological Psychiatry, 1 September 2011, Pages 408-414
Background: There has been recent interest in the possibility that epigenetic mechanisms might contribute to the transgenerational transmission of stress-induced vulnerability. Here, we focused on possible paternal transmission with the social defeat stress paradigm.
Methods: Adult male mice exposed to chronic social defeat stress or control nondefeated mice were bred with normal female mice, and their offspring were assessed behaviorally for depressive- and anxiety-like measures. Plasma levels of corticosterone and vascular endothelial growth factor were also assayed. To directly assess the role of epigenetic mechanisms, we used in vitro fertilization (IVF); behavioral assessments were conducted on offspring of mice from IVF-control and IVF-defeated fathers.
Results: We show that both male and female offspring from defeated fathers exhibit increased measures of several depression- and anxiety-like behaviors. The male offspring of defeated fathers also display increased baseline plasma levels of corticosterone and decreased levels of vascular endothelial growth factor. However, most of these behavioral changes were not observed when offspring were generated through IVF.
Conclusions: These results suggest that, although behavioral adaptations that occur after chronic social defeat stress can be transmitted from the father to his male and female F1 progeny, only very subtle changes might be transmitted epigenetically under the conditions tested.