Study: The role of structural change in Africa’s fertility transition
A new study by NADEL’s Nicolas Büttner, Isabel Günther, and Kenneth Harttgen, analyzes the role of structural change in Africa’s slow fertility transition. It finds that female education and employment in skilled nonagricultural jobs, industrialization, and a formalization of the economy are important drivers of fertility declines.
Despite recent economic growth and reductions in child mortality, many African countries have experienced only slow fertility declines. The total fertility rate, i.e., the number of births per woman, is still 4.5 in sub-Saharan Africa.
A recent study published in Demography, co-authored by NADEL’s Nicolas Büttner, Isabel Günther, and Kenneth Harttgen, explores whether the region’s slow structural economic change can explain this discrepancy. For this, they built a unique dataset combing household surveys and nighttime lights data from 57 low- and middle-income countries covering a period from 1986 to 2019.
While confirming that household wealth, reduced child mortality, and female primary education are relevant for fertility declines, their analysis highlights the importance of indicators of structural change, which have so far not been studied in the context of fertility transitions. Higher female education and employment in skilled nonagricultural jobs, industrialization, and a formalization of the economy were identified as important factors for a sustained fertility transition. These factors raise the direct and indirect cost of children and thus lead to a decline in the demand for children.