Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP18551
Authors: Guilhem Cassan; Milan Van Steenvoort
Abstract: Gender-biased fertility preferences are prevalent in many societies. They are commonly thought to be a driver of fertility. We show here that this is not necessarily true: switching from gender-biased to gender-neutral fertility preferences can increase fertility. The magnitude and the sign of the variation in fertility depends on the choice of gender-neutral fertility counterfactual. We illustrate our findings using data from the Indian Demographic and Health Surveys and show that gender-biased fertility preferences can lead to a change ranging from -15% to 23% of total excess fertility or -4% to 6% of total fertility
Keywords: Gender-biased fertility preferences; Fertility; Counterfactual analysis; Gender discrimination
JEL Codes: J13; J16
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| gender-biased preferences (J16) | excess fertility (J13) |
| switching from gender-biased to gender-neutral preferences (J16) | changes in excess fertility (J13) |
| composition effect (A30) | excess fertility (J13) |
| intensity effect (C92) | excess fertility (J13) |
| families not reaching desired number of boys (J12) | more subsequent births (J19) |
| families missing girls (J12) | subsequent births (J13) |