Abstract
Studies have shown mixed associations between wealth and fertility, a finding that has posed ongoing puzzles for evolutionary theories of human reproduction. However, measures of wealth do not simply capture economic capacity, which is expected to increase fertility. They can also serve as a proxy for market opportunities available to a household, which may reduce fertility. The multifaceted meaning of many wealth measures obscures our ability to draw inferences about the relationship between wealth and fertility. Here, we disentangle economic capacity and market opportunities using wealth measures that do not carry the same market-oriented biases as commonly used asset-based measures. Using measures of agricultural and market-based wealth for 562,324 women across 111,724 sampling clusters from 151 DHS surveys in 64 countries, we employ a latent variable structural equation model to estimate (a) latent variables capturing economic capacity and market opportunity and (b) their effects on completed fertility. Market opportunities had a consistent negative effect on fertility, while economic capacity had a weaker but generally positive effect on fertility. The results show that the confusion between operational measures of wealth and the concepts of economic capacity can impede our understanding of how material resources and market contexts shape reproduction.
Highlights
The association between socioeconomic status and fertility The global transition to low fertility in the midst of modernisation has been a biological puzzle for decades (Handwerker, 1986; Kaplan, 1996; Vining, 1986)
Scholars have argued that these findings show that the links between fitness and the accumulation of wealth and status have been disrupted or severed in contemporary populations (Colleran, Jasienska, Nenko, Galbarczyk, & Mace, 2015; Pérusse, 1993)
We focus on investment models, common in economics and evolutionary social sciences, which argue that market economies drive down fertility as parents focus on generating access to novel forms of social and economic opportunities for their children (Shenk, 2009)
Summary
The association between socioeconomic status and fertility The global transition to low fertility in the midst of modernisation has been a biological puzzle for decades (Handwerker, 1986; Kaplan, 1996; Vining, 1986). Using multiple empirical measures to estimate economic capacity and market opportunities as latent variables permits a more direct test of the links between fertility and what anthropologists consider wealth and status. Using both measures of wealth in a latent variable structural equation model, we estimate how agricultural and market-based wealth reflect economic capacity, and how education and market wealth reflect market opportunities.
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