Socio-Economic Determinants of Fertility Change: An Inquiry Into The Philippine Experience

Abstract

During the past two decades or so, the study of the patterns of human reproductive behaviour or fertility has captured the interest of a number of academic disciplines including the field of economics. This is not at all unexpected since the interaction of some socio-economic variables allows demography to be closely related to economics, and vice versa, hence the field which has eventually become 'demographic economics' or 'economic demography'. The empirical validation of socio-economic variables as possible determinants of fertility change has riveted the concern of some authorities in this field (e.g., Repetto (1979, 1974); Simon (1977); Easterlin (1980, 1976)) on the experience of a number of Latin American and Asian LDCs and even developed countries. Surprisingly, this subject has not been tackled exhaustively in the case of the Philippines, let alone in the works of these authors. It is, therefore, timely that this thesis has focused attention on the investigation of some relevant socio-economic factors affecting changes in Philippine fertility, using longitudinal and cross-sectional data. An important element of this piece of research is the examination of the relation of economic status to fertility. Accordingly, the nonlinearity assumption between income and fertility, i.e., for any household the effect of a change in income on fertility will be affected by the economic position of that household, was empirically tested with the application of the average family income variable (AFY) and two measures of the income distribution pattern, namely, the Gini coefficient of concentration (GINI-C) and share of family income of the bottom 40% of the population (SFYP40-A). In addition, the influence of some social indicators (e.g., infant mortality, life expectancy at birth, female literacy and educational attainment) on fertility has been considered. Repetto's (1979) model has been adopted but modified to a certain extent in order to suit these variables relevant to existing Philippine data. Although not in the least maximal, the results show that fertility patterns, over time and across regions in the Philippines, respond to the afore-mentioned socio-economic variables. Special mention must be made of the variables AFY and SFYP40-A which have appeared to be highly correlated to Philippine fertility in relation to the other variables in the model.