Long-term barriers to global fertility convergence

Abstract

After WWII, the demographic transition exhibited features of convergence between developing countries and the forerunner countries with low fertility. Although today fertility is low in the majority of countries, significant differences persist. In this article, I study club convergence of fertility in 190 countries over the period 1950 to 2018. First, I apply a novel econometric method for convergence analysis and club clustering. I find no evidence of global fertility convergence, and I classify the 190 countries into four clubs. I further classify countries into two clubs at the beginning of the period and identify a club of countries transitioning from high to low fertility. Second, I interpret fertility convergence clubs as a feature of the long-term process of economic development and estimate an ordered probit model of the probability that a country enters one of three clubs characterized by high, medium, and low barriers to global fertility convergence. Here, the focus is on ancestral fundamental factors of diversity in economic development. Estimates show a statistically significant inverted U-shaped relationship between interpersonal population diversity and the probability of lower barriers, consistent with the literature on diversity and development. Estimates also highlight that genetic distance to the USA and years since the Neolithic transition to agriculture cause higher barriers to fertility decline.