Social capital, human capital and fertility

Coppier, Raffaella and Sabatini, Fabio and Sodini, Mauro (2018): Social capital, human capital and fertility.

Abstract

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.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: fertility, quantity-quality trade-off, human capital, education, social capital, trust
• Subjects: I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I2 - Education and Research Institutions > I25 - Education and Economic Development; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J13 - Fertility ; Family Planning ; Child Care ; Children ; Youth; Z - Other Special Topics > Z0 - General; Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics ; Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology > Z13 - Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology ; Social and Economic Stratification

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