The Effect of Pronatalist Rhetoric on Women's Fertility Preferences in Turkey

Abstract

AbstractThis paper analyzes the impact of pronatalist rhetoric on women's fertility preferences in Turkey using a mixed‐methods approach. Since 2008, Prime Minister (and since 2014 President) Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has given speeches about the necessity of increasing fertility and has demanded at least three children from families. This call was supported by monetary incentives in 2015. I analyze the impact of the rhetoric on women's fertility preferences between 2008 and 2013. In the first part of the paper, I use qualitative data I collected through in‐depth interviews in 2013 to show a relationship between women's political orientation and their acceptance of the rhetoric. Then, using quantitative data from the 2008 and 2013 rounds of the Turkey Demographic and Health Surveys, I analyze whether the pronatalist rhetoric had an independent effect on increasing fertility preferences. An individual‐level religiosity variable is used as a proxy to account for women's responsiveness to the rhetoric. I find that religiosity was positively related to women's desire to have a third child in both 2008 and 2013, but it was statistically significant only in 2013 after the rhetoric had been widely circulated in the media.