Family Planning is Not (Necessarily) the Priority Institution for Reducing Fertility
Family Planning is Not (Necessarily) the Priority Institution for Reducing Fertility
In this chapter, we sustain the view that giving more weight to institutions that focus on the proximate determinants of fertility vs. deep determinants is a priority to reduce fertility in developing countries. We first argue that family planning affects the way individuals can achieve their desired fertility but not their desired fertility itself, which determines fertility in the long run. Among the deep determinants we have in mind, children’s education, child mortality, gender wage gap, child labour, and the sectorial allocation of workers are key. In order to go beyond theoretical and qualitative claims, we propose an index, the Institutional Population Index (IPI), that measures the need of one or the other type of institution. In countries where a lot of effort has already been put in proximate determinants, we find that more investment in the deep determinants is needed before fertility starts to decline.
Keywords: fertility, institutions, family planning, proximate determinant, deep determinant, development policies
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