Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T00:19:29.295Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

SOCIAL CAPITAL, HUMAN CAPITAL, AND FERTILITY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 June 2019

Raffaella Coppier ,
Fabio Sabatini  and
Mauro Sodini
Raffaella Coppier
Affiliation:
University of Macerata
Fabio Sabatini*
Affiliation:
Sapienza University of Rome
Mauro Sodini
Affiliation:
University of Pisa
*
Address correspondence to: Fabio Sabatini, Sapienza University of Rome, Department of Economics and Law. Rome, Italy, and IZA, Bonn, Germany. e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We develop an overlapping generations model to study how the interplay between social and human capital affects fertility. In a framework where families face a trade-off between the quantity and quality of children, we incorporate the assumption that social capital plays a key role in the accumulation of human capital. We show how the erosion of social capital can trigger a chain of reactions leading households to base their childbearing decisions on quantity, instead of quality, resulting in higher fertility.

Keywords

FertilityQuantity–Quality Trade-OffHuman CapitalEducationSocial CapitalTrust
Type
Articles
Information
Macroeconomic Dynamics , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , April 2021 , pp. 632 - 650
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

We are grateful to two anonymous reviewers whose suggestions helped to substantially improve the paper. The paper also benefited from comments by participants at the 1st CICSE Workshop—10th Nonlinear Economic Dynamics (NED) Conference “Economic Dynamics, Economic Growth and Development”, Pisa, 7–9 September 2017. Usual caveats apply.

References

REFERENCES

Adsera, A. (2011) The interplay of employment uncertainty and education in explaining second births in europe. Demographic Research 25(16), 513–544.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Agenor, P.-R. and Dinh, H. T. (2015) Social capital, product imitation and growth with learning externalities. Journal of Development Economics 114(C), 41–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alesina, A. and Ferrara, E. La (2005) Preferences for redistribution in the land of opportunities. Journal of Public Economics 89, 897–931.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Algan, Y. and Cahuc, P. (2010) Inherited trust and growth. American Economic Review 100(5), 2060–2092.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Angrist, J. D. and Evans, W. N. (1998) Children and their parents labor supply: Evidence from exogenous variation in family size. American Economic Review 88(3), 450–477.Google Scholar
Antoci, A., Sacco, P. L. and Vanin, P. (2005) Social capital accumulation and the evolution of social participation. Journal of Socio-Economics 36(1), 128–143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Antoci, A., Sabatini, F. and Sodini, M. (2011) The solaria syndrome: Social capital in a growing hypertechnological economy. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 81(3), 802–814.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barro, R. J. (1991) Economic growth in a cross-section of countries. Quarterly Journal of Economics 106(2), 407–443.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Basso, A. and Cuberes, D. (2017) Deep-rooted determinants of the fertility transition across countries. Macroeconomic Dynamics 21(7), 1712–1751.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becker, G. S. and Lewis, H. G. (1973) On the interaction between the quantity and quality of children. Journal of Political Economy 81, 279–288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becker, G. S. and Tomes, N. (1976) Child endowments and the quantity and quality of children. Journal of Political Economy 84, 143–162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becker, G. S., Murphy, K. M. and Tamura, R. (1990) Human capital, fertility and economic growth. Journal of Political Economy 98, S12–S37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becker, S. O., Cinnirella, F. and Woessmann, L. (2010) The trade-off between fertility and education: Evidence from before the demographic transition. Journal of Economic Growth 15, 177–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bilancini, E. and D’Alessandro, S. (2012) Long-run welfare under externalities in consumption, leisure, and production: A case for happy degrowth vs. unhappy growth. Ecological Economics 84, 194–205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bofota, Y. B., Boucekkine, R. and Bala, A. P. (2016) Social capital as an engine of growth:Multisectoral modeling and implications. Macroeconomic Dynamics 20(8), 2093–2122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1982) Les rites d’institution. Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 43, 58–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1986) The forms of capital, volume Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education. Greenwood, Westport, CT.Google Scholar
Coleman, J. S. (1988) Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology 94, S95–S120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Costa, D. and Kahn, M. E. (2003) Cowards and heroes: Group loyalty in the american civil war. Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(2), 519–548.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De La Croix, D. (2013) Fertility, education, growth and sustainability. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
De La Croix, D. and Doepke, M. (2003) Inequality and growth: Why differential fertility matters. American Economic Review 93, 1091–1113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duflo, E., Dupas, P. and Kremer, M. (2015) Education, hiv and early fertility: Experimental evidence from kenya. American Economic Review 105(9), 2757–2797.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fanti, L. and Gori, L. (2012) A note on endogenous fertility, child allowances and poverty traps. Economic Letters 117(3), 722–726.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fanti, L. and Gori, L. (2014) Endogenous fertility, endogenous lifetime and economic growth: The role of child policies. Journal of Population Economics 27, 529–564.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fernihough, A. (2017) Human capital and the quantity–quality trade-off during the demographic transition. Journal of Economic Growth 22, 35–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galor, O. (2011) Unified growth theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Galor, O. and Moav, O. (2002) Natural selection and the origin of economic growth. Quarterly Journal of Economics 117, 1133–1191.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galor, O. and Weil, D. N. (1999) From malthusian stagnation to modern growth. American Economic Review 89(2), 150–154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galor, O. and Weil, D. N. (2000) Population, technology and growth: From malthusian stagnation to the demographic transition and beyond. American Economic Review 90(4), 806–828.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Growiec, J. (2010) Human capital, aggregation, and growth. Macroeconomic Dynamics 14(2), 189–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Growiec, K. and Growiec, J. (2014) Social capital, trust, and multiple equilibria in economic performance. Macroeconomic Dynamics 18(2), 282–315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guiso, L., Sapienza, P. and Zingales, L. (2004) The role of social capital in financial development. American Economic Review 94(3), 526–576.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guiso, L., Sapienza, P. and Zingales, L. (2010) Civic capital as the missing link. In: Benhabib, J., Bisin, A., and Jackson, M. O. (eds), Handbook of Social Economics, chapter 10, pp. 417–480. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Guiso, L., Sapienza, P. and Zingales, L. (2016) Long-term persistence. Journal of the European Economic Association 14(6), 1401–1436.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansen, C. W., Jensen, P. S. and Lonstrup, L. (2017) The fertility decline in the united states: Schooling and income. Macroeconomic Dynamics 22(6), 1584–1612. https://doi.org/10.1017/S136510051600081X.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirazawa, M. and Yakita, A. (2017) Labor supply of elderly people, fertility, and economic development. Journal of Macroeconomics 51, 75–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karlan, D., Mobius, M., Rosenblat, T. and Szeidi, A. (2009) Trust and social collateral. Quarterly Journal of Economics 124(3), 1307–1361.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ketteni, E., Mamuneas, T. and Stengos, T. (2011) The effect of information technology and human capital on economic growth. Macroeconomic Dynamics 15(5), 595–615.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knack, S. and Keefer, P. (1997) Does social capital have an economic payoff? Quarterly Journal of Economics 112(4), 1251–1288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCrary, J. and Royer, H. (2011) The effect of female education on fertility and infant health: evidence from school entry policies using exact date of birth. American Economic Review 101(1), 158–195.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Modena, F., Rondinelli, C. and Sabatini, F. (2014) Economic insecurity and fertility intentions: The case of italy. Review of Income and Wealth 60(1), 233–255.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nakamura, H. and Seoka, Y. (2013) Differential fertility and economic development. Macroeconomic Dynamics 18(5), 1048–1068.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nannicini, T., Stella, A., Tabellini, G. and Troiano, U. (2013) Social capital and political accountability. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 5(2), 222–250.Google Scholar
Putnam, R. D., Leonardi, R. and Nanetti, R. Y. (1993) Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Strulik, H. (2018) Desire and development. Macroeconomic Dynamics, 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1365100517000943.Google Scholar
Yakita, A. (2010) Human capital accumulation, fertility and economic development. Journal of Economics 99, 97–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar