Fertility: The Role of Culture and Family Experience

12 Pages Posted: 27 Oct 2005

See all articles by Alessandra Fogli

Alessandra Fogli

Leonard N. Stern School of Business - Department of Economics

Raquel Fernández

New York University - Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Multiple version iconThere are 3 versions of this paper

Date Written: July 2005

Abstract

This paper attempts to disentangle the direct effects of experience from those of culture in determining fertility. We use the GSS to examine the fertility of women born in the US but from different ethnic backgrounds. We take lagged values of the total fertility rate in the woman's country of ancestry as the cultural proxy and use the woman's number of siblings to capture her direct family experience. We find that both variables are significant determinants of fertility, even after controlling for several individual and family-level characteristics.

Keywords: fertility, cultural transmission, immigrants, family

JEL Classification: J13, J16, Z10

Suggested Citation

Fogli, Alessandra and Fernández, Raquel, Fertility: The Role of Culture and Family Experience (July 2005). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=825745 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.825745

Alessandra Fogli (Contact Author)

Leonard N. Stern School of Business - Department of Economics ( email )

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Raquel Fernández

New York University - Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics ( email )

269 Mercer Street
New York, NY 10003
United States
212-998-8908 (Phone)
212-995-4186 (Fax)

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

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