(1a) Test whether information and coordination failures may prevent the decline in fertility in Africa
We implemented a Randomized Control Trial with 14,454 households in 500 villages in rural Burkina Faso to test the idea that misperceptions about attitudes and norms systematically increased desired fertility and reduced the acceptance of modern contraception. We organized village meetings to (i) reveal the distribution of others’ views on ideal family size, relevance of pro-natalist norms and contraception; and (ii) spark community discussions. Our hypothesis was that birth rates would decline in villages where people initially underestimated the acceptability of small families. We reject this hypothesis: the village meetings had no effect on fertility.
We collected data on subjective variables related to fertility behaviors, such as expectations, preferences, first- and second-order beliefs regarding community norms, at a very large scale and at 2 moments in time (14,454 couples, men and women interviewed separately, in 2018 and 2021).
(1b) Assess the importance of conformism and competition in the diffusion and persistence of small families using a partial population experiment in China.
We analyzed the impact of the “Later, Longer, Fewer” policy introduced in the 70s in China. We find that ethnic minorities decreased their fertility, although only the majority ethnic group, the Han Chinese, were subject to birth quotas. We find that the fertility response of minorities is driven by a social channel (people do not want to deviate from the average behavior) and by an economic channel (people want to keep up in terms of resources spent per child). We conclude that conformism and competition both played a role in the diffusion and persistence of small families in China.
(2a) Quantify the extent to which imbalanced sex ratios contribute to male singleness in China.
Among single men, the annual probability to marry in 2019 was twice as low as in 1999. Estimating a structural model of the marriage market, we find that the deterioration of female-to-male ratio, known as the marriage squeeze, explains 18% of this decline. The increase in in the supply of educated people explains an additional 50%, partly due to a mismatch between educated women and less-educated men. The decrease in marital surplus, i.e. value of marriage, explains the rest.
