Fertility Decline in Russia in the Early and Mid 1990s: The Role of Economic Uncertainty and Labour Market Crises

Type Journal Article - European Journal of Population
Title Fertility Decline in Russia in the Early and Mid 1990s: The Role of Economic Uncertainty and Labour Market Crises
Author(s)
Volume 18
Issue 3
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 2002
Page numbers 233-262
URL http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/asiadem/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/kohler_kohler_ejp_02.pdf
Abstract
This paper analyses the fertility decline in Russia during theearly and mid 1990s from both a macro- and micro-perspective and presents astriking divergence between these two empirical viewpoints. While the formersuggests that the fertility decline after 1989 is associated with theeconomic hardship accompanying the transition to a market economy, themicro-evidence using the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey is to thecontrary. There is no negative association between labour market uncertaintyor a labour market crisis and fertility, and frequently there is even apositive association. That is, women or couples who are themselves affectedby labour market crises often had a higher probability of having anotherchild in the period 1994–1996 than women/couples who were less affected bysuch crises. The lack of a negative association, and the presence of apositive association in many instances, is surprising from the standpoint ofeconomic fertility theory. It is also contrary to many explanatory theoriesabout the recent fertility decline in Central and Eastern European countriesthat are built on a more or less direct connection between the labour marketor an economic crisis and low fertility.

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