L'analyse des comportements de fécondité : politiques publiques et facteurs culturels
Year: 2008
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: My thesis provides a contribution to economists' continuous attempts at understanding the determinants of population growth and their implications for human well-being. It particularly focuses on fertility behaviors which are the main determinant of population growth. The first chapter of the present thesis explores the economic policy recommendations of the standard Beckerian model. I show that, in order to reach the first best equilibrium, education subsidies have to be combined with taxes or transfers on births. The optimal family policy consists in a tax on births when externalities on education investments are strong. The second chapter proposes a model in which the apparition and the timing of the demographic transition are determined by interactions between cultural and economic determinants of fertility behaviors. The demographic transition is then the result of both an asymmetric technological progress in favor of industries and a cultural transition. The third chapter measures the impact of religion and religious practice on fertility behaviors for the first time in France. I show that the intensity of religious practice is the sole religious variable which significantly influences fertility: the more intense the religious practice is, the higher the respondent's fertility. The transmission of fertility behaviors and family ties among generations are also significant determinants of fertility in France. Standard Beckerian effects are also validated.
Source: HAL
Author: Thomas Baudin
Institution: Centre d'Économie de la Sorbonne
Language: French
Subfield: Demography
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W416301540