Deon Filmer; Jed Friedman; Norbert Schady

Abstract:
Much development aid over the past 40 years has been devoted to family planning on the assumption that information and supply constraints for contraceptive services result in families larger than demanded and the welfare of each child in a large family subsequently suffers due to dilution of household resources. However it is not clear that larger families per se result in worse outcomes, especially if older children play a role in household production or if the marginal cost of child investment is low. An improved understanding of the relationship between fertility and child welfare in developing countries will help inform future policies related to child investments including the targeting of health or education subsidies or conditional aid transfers.
 
Economists have formulated a variety of models linking family size with child outcomes, beginning with the quantity/quality tradeoffs described by Becker (1960). It is difficult to measure the causal impact of an increase in the number of children on child outcomes because households select into larger or smaller families, and a family’s optimal tradeoff between the quantity and quality of children may be simultaneously determined. In the absence of natural experiments that may affect fertility choice but not otherwise affect child outcomes, an econometric approach is needed in order to identify and quantify such an effect.
 
Contact Information:
Deon Filmer, dfilmer@worldbank.org; Jed Friedman, jfriedman@worldbank.org; Norbert Schady nschady@worldbank.org, The World Bank