1. Malaria ecology, child mortality & fertility
- Author
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Gordon C. McCord, Dalton Conley, and Jeffrey D. Sachs
- Subjects
Rain ,Economics, Econometrics and Finance (miscellaneous) ,Disease ,Infant Mortality ,050207 economics ,Birth Rate ,Child ,050205 econometrics ,media_common ,Ecology ,05 social sciences ,Causal effect ,Child, Preschool ,Child Mortality ,Infection ,Ecology (disciplines) ,Total fertility rate ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Public Policy ,Fertility ,Biology ,Article ,Rare Diseases ,Malaria transmission ,Clinical Research ,0502 economics and business ,medicine ,Animals ,Humans ,Mortality ,Preschool ,Weather ,Developing Countries ,Tropical Climate ,General Arts ,Contraception/Reproduction ,Infant ,medicine.disease ,Malaria ,Insect Vectors ,Vector-Borne Diseases ,Child mortality ,Good Health and Well Being ,Culicidae ,Socioeconomic Factors ,Applied Economics ,Humanities & Social Sciences ,Demography - Abstract
The broad determinants of fertility are thought to be reasonably well identified by demographers, though the detailed quantitative drivers of fertility levels and changes are less well understood. This paper uses a novel ecological index of malaria transmission to study the effect of child mortality on fertility. We find that temporal variation in the ecology of the disease is well-correlated to mortality, and pernicious malaria conditions lead to higher fertility rates. We then argue that most of this effect occurs through child mortality, and estimate the effect of child mortality changes on fertility. Our findings add to the literature on disease and fertility, and contribute to the suggestive evidence that child mortality reductions have a causal effect on fertility changes.
- Published
- 2017
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