Colonial origins and fertility: can the market overcome history?

Canning, David and Mabeu, Marie Christelle and Pongou, Roland (2020): Colonial origins and fertility: can the market overcome history?

Abstract

This paper shows that differences in fertility behavior between African countries can be traced back to colonial institutions. Exploiting the arbitrary division of ancestral ethnic homelands and the resulting discontinuity in institutions across the British-French colonial borders, we find that women in formerly British areas are more likely to delay marriage and initiation of sexual intercourse, and that they have fewer children. However, these effects disappear in areas with exogenously high market access, where we also find the opportunity cost of childbearing to be high regardless of the colonizer’s identity. In areas with low market access, the fertility effect of British colonization remarkably mirrors its impact on various measures of local economic development and household welfare. Examining causal mechanisms, we argue that the fertility effect of colonial origins can be directly linked to differences in colonial reproductive laws, and indirectly to the effects of colonial institutions on women’s human capital and economic empowerment, and on child quality. Our analysis is the first to uncover novel findings on the heterogeneous nature of the colonial origins of comparative economic development. These findings imply that appropriately designed economic incentives can overcome the bonds of historical determinism.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Fertility, Colonial Origins, Colonial Reproductive Laws, Market Access, Economic Development, Human Capital, Historical Determinism, Africa
• Subjects: I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I1 - Health > I12 - Health Behavior; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J13 - Fertility ; Family Planning ; Child Care ; Children ; Youth; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J16 - Economics of Gender ; Non-labor Discrimination; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development

References

Acemoglu, D., Gallego, F., & Robinson, J. (2014). Institutions, human capital and development (NBER Working Papers No. 19933). National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

Acemoglu, D., Johnson, S., & Robinson, J. A. (2001, December). The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation. American Economic Review, 91(5), 1369-1401.

Acemoglu, D., Johnson, S., & Robinson, J. A. (2002). Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 117 (4), 1231-1294.

Adepoju, A. (2008). Migration in sub-saharan africa. Current African Issues number 37 Uppsala, The Nordic Africa Institute.

Alesina, A., & Ferrara, E. L. (2003). Ethnic Diversity and Economic Performance (Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers No. 2028). Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.

Alesina, A., Giuliano, P., & Nunn, N. (2011). Fertility and the plough. American Economic Review, 101 (3), 499-503. Alesina, A., Giuliano, P., & Nunn, N. (2013). On the origin of gender roles: Women and the plough. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 128 (2), 469-530.

Alesina, A., Michalopoulos, S., & Papaioannou, E. (2013). Ethnic Inequality (CAGE Online Working Paper Series No. 155). Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE). Anderson, S. (2018, June). Legal Origins and Female HIV. American Economic Review, 108 (6), 1407-1439.

Banerjee, A. V., & Duflo, E. (2014). Under the thumb of history? political institutions and the scope for action. Annu. Rev. Econ., 6 (1), 951–971.

Bank, W. (2016). World development indicators. washington, d.c. Barro, R., & Becker, G. (1989). Fertility choice in a model of economic growth. Econometrica, 57 (2), 481-501.

Beach, B., & Hanlon, W. W. (2019). Censorship, family planning, and the historical fertility transition (Tech. Rep.). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Beck, T., Demirguc-Kunt, A., & Levine, R. (2003). Law and finance: why does legal origin matter? Journal of Comparative Economics, 31 (4), 653-675.

Becker, G. (1960). An economic analysis of fertility. In Demographic and economic change in developed countries (p.209-240). National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

Becker, G. (1965). A theory of the allocation of time. The economic journal, 493–517.

Becker, G., & Barro, R. (1988). A reformulation of the economic theory of fertility. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 103 (1), 1-25.

Becker, G., & Lewis, H. G. (1973). On the interaction between the quantity and quality of children. Journal of Political Economy, 81 (2), S279-88.

Benavot, A., & Riddle, P. (1988). The expansion of primary education, 1870-1940: Trends and issues. Sociology of Education, 61 (3), 191–210.

Bergh, A., & Fink, G. (2018). The french curse? on the puzzling economic consequences of French colonization (Working Paper Series No. 1234). Research Institute of Industrial Economics.

Bertocchi, G., & Canova, F. (2002). Did colonization matter for growth?: An empirical exploration into the historical causes of Africa's underdevelopment. European Economic Review, 46 (10), 1851-1871.

Bhattacharjee, S., & Dasgupta, A. (2016). Examining the quality-quantity trade-off: Evidence from a public health intervention in India. Working paper.

Bhattacharya, J., & Chakraborty, S. (2017). Contraception and the demographic transition. The Economic Journal, 127, Issue 606.

Bloom, D. E., Canning, D., Fink, G., & Finlay, J. E. (2009). Fertility, female labor force participation, and the demographic dividend. Journal of Economic Growth, 14 (2), 79–101.

Bolt, J., & Bezemer, D. (2009). Understanding long-run African growth: Colonial institutions or colonial education? Journal of Development Studies, 45 (1), 24-54.

Bongaarts, J. (2010). The causes of educational differences in fertility in sub-Saharan Africa. Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, 8 (1), 31-50.

Bongaarts, J., & Casterline, J. (2013). Fertility transition: Is sub-Saharan Africa different? Population and Development Review, 38, 153-168.

Bongaarts, J., Frank, O., & Lesthaeghe, R. (1984). The proximate determinants of fertility in sub-saharan africa. Population and Development Review., 10 (3), 511.

Borg, M. O. (1989). The income-fertility relationship: Effect of the net price of a child. Demography, 26 (2), 301-310.

Cagé, J., & Rueda, V. (2016). The long-term effects of the printing press in sub-Saharan Africa. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 8 (3), 69-99.

Caldwell, J. C., & Sai, F. T. (2007). Family planning in ghana. The global family planning revolution, 379.

Cameron, A., Gelbach, J., & Miller, D. (2011). Robust inference with multiway clustering. Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, 29 (2), 238-249.

Chatterjee, S., & Vogl, T. (2018). Escaping Malthus: Economic Growth and Fertility Change in the Developing World. American Economic Review, 108 (6), 1440-1467.

Chen, X., & Nordhaus, W. D. (2011). Using luminosity data as a proxy for economic statistics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Cochrane, S. (1979). Fertility and education: What do we really know? Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Cogneau, D., & Dupraz, Y. (2014). Questionable Inference on the Power of PreColonial Institutions in Africa (Tech. Rep.). HAL.

Cogneau, D., & Moradi, A. (2014). Borders that divide: Education and religion in Ghana and Togo since colonial times. The Journal of Economic History, 74 (3), 694-729.

Cohen, A., Dehejia, R., & Romanov, D. (2013). Financial incentives and fertility. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 95 (1), 1-20.

Crowder, M. (1964). Indirect rule: French and British style. Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 34 (3), 197–205.

D’Albis, H., Greulich, A., & Ponthiere, G. (2017). Development, fertility and childbearing age: A unified growth theory. PSE Working Papers, HAL.

Dell, M. (2010). The persistent effects of Peru's mining mita. Econometrica, 78 (6), 1863-1903.

Diamond, J. (2005). Guns, germs, and steel: The fates of human societies (revised). New York: WW Norton and Co., Inc.

Djankov, S., Porta, R. L., de Silanes, F. L., & Shleifer, A. (2002). The Regulation of Entry. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 117 (1), 1-37.

Doepke, M. (2015). Gary becker on the quantity and quality of children. Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, 81 (1), 59-66.

Doepke, M., & Tertilt, M. (2018). Women's empowerment, the gender gap in desired fertility, and fertility outcomes in developing countries. In AEA papers and proceedings (Vol.108, pp. 358–62).

Dupraz, Y. (2017). French and British Colonial Legacies in Education: Evidence from the Partition of Cameroon, CAGE Online Working Paper Series No. 333.

Englebert, P. (2000). State legitimacy and development in Africa. Lynne Rienner (02), 498-499.

Fenske, J., & Kala, N. (2017). 1807: Economic shocks, conflict and the slave trade. Journal of Development Economics, 126, 66–76.

Fernandez-Villaverde, J., Greenwood, J., & Guner, N. (2014). From shame to game in one hundred years: An economic model of the rise in premarital sex and its de-stigmatization. Journal of the European Economic Association, 12, 25-61.

Finlay, J., Canning, D., Po, J. Y., et al. (2012). Reproductive health laws around the world (Tech. Rep.). Program on the Global Demography of Aging.

Finlay, J., & Erin, J. (2017). Barriers to contraceptive use: Examination of contraceptive laws and contraceptive use in sub-Saharan Africa. J Contracept Stud., 2 (2:8).

Galloway, T. A., & Hart, R. K. (2015). Effects of income and the cost of children on fertility. Quasi-experimental evidence from Norway. Discussion Papers No. 828. Statistics Norway, Research Department.

Galor, O. (2011). Unified growth theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Galor, O., & Moav, O. (2002). Natural selection and the origin of economic growth. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 117 (4), 1133–1191.

Galor, O., & Weil, D. (1996). The gender gap, fertility, and growth. American Economic Review, 86 (3), 374-87.

Galor, O., & Weil, D. N. (1999). From Malthusian stagnation to modern growth. American Economic Review, 89 (2), 150-154.

Galor, O., & Weil, D. N. (2000). Population, technology, and growth: From Malthusian stagnation to the demographic transition and beyond. American Economic Review, 90 (4), 806-828.

Garenne, M. (2017). Planning familial et fécondité en Afrique: Évolutions de 1950 à 2010 (Tech. Rep.). FERDI.

Glaeser, E. L., Porta, R. L., de Silanes, F. L., & Shleifer, A. (2004). Do institutions cause growth? Journal of Economic Growth, 9 (3), 271-303.

Glaeser, E. L., & Shleifer, A. (2002). Legal Origins. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 117 (4), 1193-1229.

Greenwood, J., & Guner, N. (2010). Social change: The sexual revolution. International Economic Review, 51, 893-923.

Grier, R. (1999). Colonial legacies and economic growth. Public Choice, 98 (3-4), 317-35.

Henderson, J. V., Storeygard, A., & Weil, D. (2012). Measuring economic growth from outer space. American Economic Review, 102 (2), 994-1028.

Henley, D. (2011). Forced labour and rising fertility in colonial Indonesia. Asian Population Studies, 7 (1), 3-13.

Huillery, E. (2009). History matters: The long-term impact of colonial public investments in french west Africa. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 1 (2), 176-215.

Huillery, E. (2011). The impact of European settlement within french west Africa: Did pre-colonial prosperous areas fall behind? Journal of African Economies, 20 (2,1), 263-311.

Iyer, L. (2010). Direct versus indirect colonial rule in India: Long-term consequences. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 4, 693-713.

Kennes, J., & Knowles, J. (2013). Can technological change account for the sexual revolution? CPC Discussion Paper 34.

Krugman, P. (1991). Increasing returns and economic geography. Journal of political economy, 99 (3), 483–499.

LaPorta, R., de Silanes, F. L., Shleifer, A., & Vishny, R. (1999). The quality of government. Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, 15 (1), 222-279.

La Porta, R., de Silanes, F. L., Shleifer, A., & Vishny, R. W. (1997). Legal Determinants of External Finance. Journal of Finance, 52 (3), 1131-1150.

La Porta, R., de Silanes, F. L., Shleifer, A., & Vishny, R. W. (1998). Law and Finance. Journal of Political Economy, 106 (6), 1113-1155.

La Porta, R., Lopez-de Silanes, F., & Shleifer, A. (2008). The economic consequences of legal origins. Journal of Economic Literature, 46 (2), 285-332.

Latham, M. (2002). Regulating reproduction: a century of conflict in Britain and France. Manchester University Press.

Lee, A., & Schultz, K. A. (2012). Comparing British and French colonial legacies: A discontinuity analysis of Cameroon. Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 7 (4), 365-410.

Levine, R. (1999). Law, finance, and economic growth. Journal of Financial Intermediation, 8 (12), 8-35.

Liu, H. (2014). The quality-quantity trade-off: Evidence from the relaxation of china's one-child policy. Journal of Population Economics, 27:2, 565-602.

Lohrmann, R. (1989). Irregular migration: An emerging issue in developing countries, in r. appleyard (ed.), the impact of international migration on developing countries, Paris. Development Centre for Economic Cooperation and Development, 129-142.

Mahoney, P. (2001). The common law and economic growth: Hayek might be right. The Journal of Legal Studies, 30 (2), 503–525.

McNicoll, G. (1980). Institutional determinants of fertility change. Population and Development Review, 6 (3), pp. 441-46.

Michalopoulos, S., & Papaioannou, E. (2013). Pre-Colonial Ethnic Institutions and Contemporary African Development. Econometrica, 81 (1), 113-152.

Michalopoulos, S., & Papaioannou, E. (2014). National Institutions and Subnational Development in Africa. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 129 (1), 151-213.

Michalopoulos, S., & Papaioannou, E. (2015). On the Ethnic Origins of African Development: Traditional Chiefs and Pre Colonial Political Centralization. Academic of Management Perspectives, 29 (1), 32-71.

Michalopoulos, S., & Papaioannou, E. (2016). The long-run effects of the scramble for Africa. American Economic Review, 106 (7), 1802-48.

Michalopoulos, S., & Papaioannou, E. (2018). Historical legacies and African development (Tech. Rep.). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Milligan, K. (2005). Subsidizing the stork: New evidence on tax incentives and fertility. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 87 (3), 539-555.

Millimet, D. L., & Wang, L. (2011). Is the quantity-quality trade-off a trade-off for all, none, or some? Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, 60(1), 155-195.

Min, B. (2008). Democracy and light: Electoral accountability and the provision of public goods. Working Paper, mimeo UCLA.

Mincer, J. (1963). Opportunity costs and income effects. In C. Christ (Ed.), Measurement in economics. Stanford University Press.

Murdock, G. P. (1959). Africa: Its peoples and their culture history. McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York.

Nunn, N. (2008). The long-term effects of Africa's slave trades. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 123(1), 139-176.

Nunn, N. (2009). The importance of history for economic development. Working Paper No. 14899. National Bureau of Economic Research.

Nunn, N. (2011). Gender and missionary influence in colonial Africa. Mimeo, Harvard University.

Nunn, N., & Wantchekon, L. (2011). The slave trade and the origins of mistrust in Africa. American Economic Review, 101(7), 3221-3252.

Okoye, D., & Pongou, R. (2014). Historical missionary activity, schooling, and the reversal of fortunes: Evidence from Nigeria. Schooling, and the Reversal of Fortunes: Evidence from Nigeria.

Okoye, D., & Pongou, R. (2017). Sea changes: The transatlantic slave trade and missionary activity in Africa. Unpublished manuscript. Retrieved December 6, 2017.

Okoye, D., Pongou, R., & Yokossi, T. (2019). New technology, better economy? The heterogeneous impact of colonial railroads in Nigeria. Journal of Development Economics, 140, 320–354.

Oliver, R. (1995). Contraceptive use in ghana: the role of service availability, quality, and price. The World Bank.

Pinkovskiy, M. L. (2013). Economic discontinuities across borders: Evidence from satellite data on lights at night. mimeo, MIT, Department of Economics.

Prosser, G., & Weiskel, T. C. (1971). African education in a colonial context: French and British styles. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, In. Chapter 19, 663-711.

Rehana, S. (1996). The impact of socio-economic factors on fertility behaviour: A cross-country analysis. The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, 35 (2), 107-128.

Ricart-Huguet, J. (2018). The origins of colonial investments in former British and French Africa. Submitted.

Schultz, T. P. (1981). Investing in people: the economics of population quality [Book]. University of California Press Berkeley, Calif.

Schultz, T. P. (1993). Demand for children in low-income countries. In M. R. Rosenzweig & O. Stark (Eds.), Handbook of population and family economics, 1st ed., Vols. 1, Part A, p. 349-430. Elsevier.

Schultz, T. P. (2001). The Fertility Transition: Economic Explanations. Working Papers No. 833. Economic Growth Center, Yale University.

Shapiro, D. (2012). Women's education and fertility transition in sub-Saharan Africa. Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, 10, 9–30.

Smith, A. (1977). An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. University of Chicago Press.

Strulik, H. (2017). Contraception and development: A unified growth theory. International Economic Review, 58, 561-584.

UNDP. (2016). Africa human development report 2016: Accelerating gender equality and women's empowerment in Africa. UNDP Regional Bureau for Africa.

UNESCO. (2018). One in five children, adolescents and youth is out of school (Tech. Rep.). UIS fact sheet No. 48.

Voena, A. (2011). Yours, Mine and Ours: Do Divorce Laws Affect the Intertemporal Behavior of Married Couples? Discussion Papers No. 10-022. Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.

Wantchekon, L., Klasnja, M., & Novta, N. (2015). Education and human capital externalities: Evidence from colonial Benin. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 130 (2), 703-757.

White, B. W. (1996). Talk about school: Education and the colonial project in french and British Africa (1860-1960). Comparative Education, 32 (1), 9-26.

Willis, R. (1974). Economic theory of fertility behavior. In Economics of the family: Marriage, children, and human capital (p. 25-80). National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.