Gender empowerment as an enforcer of individuals’ choice between education and fertility : Evidence from 19th century France
(2021) In Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 188. p.408-438- Abstract
Recent theoretical developments in growth models, triggered particularly by unified theories of growth, suggest that the child quantity-quality trade-off is a defining element in our explanation of a transition from Malthusian stagnation to a sustained growth path. This paper presents a model and derive a testable empirical framework to investigate the role of gender in the trade-off between education and fertility for 86 French counties during the 19th century. Endogeneity-mitigated mean- and median-based regressions offer robust empirical predictions for gender-empowered quality-quantity trade-off. In particular, we find the existence of a significant and negative association between education and fertility. Further, while gaging the... (More)
Recent theoretical developments in growth models, triggered particularly by unified theories of growth, suggest that the child quantity-quality trade-off is a defining element in our explanation of a transition from Malthusian stagnation to a sustained growth path. This paper presents a model and derive a testable empirical framework to investigate the role of gender in the trade-off between education and fertility for 86 French counties during the 19th century. Endogeneity-mitigated mean- and median-based regressions offer robust empirical predictions for gender-empowered quality-quantity trade-off. In particular, we find the existence of a significant and negative association between education and fertility. Further, while gaging the differential effects of schooling on fertility, we find that the short-run differences between male and female are small whilst the long-run effects are large. From policy perspective, our results imply that for stable long-run growth it matters not just that parents educate their children, but specifically that they choose to educate girls.
(Less)
- author
- Diebolt, Claude ; Mishra, Tapas and Perrin, Faustine LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2021-08
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Cliometrics, Education, fertility, Gender difference, Model of individuals’ choice, Nineteenth century France, Quality-Quantity trade-off, Unified growth theory
- in
- Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
- volume
- 188
- pages
- 31 pages
- publisher
- Elsevier
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85107812691
- ISSN
- 0167-2681
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.05.011
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 0a495b0f-e9b9-46d6-afdc-323be28558ce
- date added to LUP
- 2021-07-05 17:36:20
- date last changed
- 2022-05-30 16:10:34
@article{0a495b0f-e9b9-46d6-afdc-323be28558ce,
abstract = {{<p>Recent theoretical developments in growth models, triggered particularly by unified theories of growth, suggest that the child quantity-quality trade-off is a defining element in our explanation of a transition from Malthusian stagnation to a sustained growth path. This paper presents a model and derive a testable empirical framework to investigate the role of gender in the trade-off between education and fertility for 86 French counties during the 19th century. Endogeneity-mitigated mean- and median-based regressions offer robust empirical predictions for gender-empowered quality-quantity trade-off. In particular, we find the existence of a significant and negative association between education and fertility. Further, while gaging the differential effects of schooling on fertility, we find that the short-run differences between male and female are small whilst the long-run effects are large. From policy perspective, our results imply that for stable long-run growth it matters not just that parents educate their children, but specifically that they choose to educate girls.</p>}},
author = {{Diebolt, Claude and Mishra, Tapas and Perrin, Faustine}},
issn = {{0167-2681}},
keywords = {{Cliometrics; Education; fertility; Gender difference; Model of individuals’ choice; Nineteenth century France; Quality-Quantity trade-off; Unified growth theory}},
language = {{eng}},
pages = {{408--438}},
publisher = {{Elsevier}},
series = {{Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization}},
title = {{Gender empowerment as an enforcer of individuals’ choice between education and fertility : Evidence from 19th century France}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2021.05.011}},
doi = {{10.1016/j.jebo.2021.05.011}},
volume = {{188}},
year = {{2021}},
}