Comparative Advantage, International Trade, and Fertility
This paper analyzes theoretically and empirically the impact of comparative advantage in international trade on fertility. It builds a model in which industries differ in the extent to which they use female relative to male labor and countries are...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2014
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2014/06/19696314/comparative-advantage-international-trade-fertility http://hdl.handle.net/10986/18811 |
| Summary: | This paper analyzes theoretically and
empirically the impact of comparative advantage in
international trade on fertility. It builds a model in which
industries differ in the extent to which they use female
relative to male labor and countries are characterized by
Ricardian comparative advantage in either female labor or
male labor intensive goods. The main prediction of the model
is that countries with comparative advantage in female labor
intensive goods are characterized by lower fertility. This
is because female wages and therefore the opportunity cost
of children are higher in those countries. The paper
demonstrates empirically that countries with comparative
advantage in industries employing primarily women exhibit
lower fertility. The analysis uses a geography-based
instrument for trade patterns to isolate the causal effect
of comparative advantage on fertility. |
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