On the Relationship between Fertility, Development and Gender Equality: A Comparison of Western and MENA Countries

Abstract

The changing macro-level relationship between fertility and development (i.e., the standard of living, health and education) from negative to positive for the most advanced economies has received considerable attention recently. Using aggregate data, we compare the relationship between fertility and development in Western countries with the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, where fertility rates are higher than in other regions with identical levels of development. To understand the drivers of this association, we further link fertility to the components of development as well as female labour force participation separately. Our findings show that fertility and development were positively associated for only a short period in Western countries and that the relationship turned negative again in recent years. Recent data also show that there is no significant relationship between fertility and development in MENA countries. These findings indicate that the well-acknowledged theories of fertility and development do not apply in every context.

Rising Patriarchy and Declining Economic Opportunity: Life Courses and Social Change in Egypt between 1965 and 2018

“…As indicated by the BIC between men and women's work lives, gender inequality in work life courses increased with rising GDP in Egypt. Our study is in line with previous research showing that standard indicators of development, such as GDP, do not necessarily go along with gender equality and underline the crucial role of the public sector for granting women employment opportunities (Anderson and Kohler 2015; Buyukkececi and Engelhardt 2021; Assaad and Barsoum 2019).…”

“…MENA countries still rank at the bottom on gender inequality indicators, including employment and political empowerment (World Economic Forum 2017). Persistently low female and youth employment challenge common interpretations that equate economic development with increasing formal employment, prosperity, gender equality, and declining fertility (Anderson and Kohler 2015;Buyukkececi and Engelhardt 2021;Inglehart and Norris 2003).…”

“…Studies on social change in Egypt and the MENA region typically rely on nationally representative aggregate trend indicators, such as total fertility rates and the GDP (Buyukkececi and Engelhardt 2021; El‐Haddad 2020), or present rich qualitative ethnographic profiles comparing specific villages or neighborhoods at different time points (Ibrahim 2021; Wickham 2002). Our study bridges these either strongly macro‐ or microlevel approaches by exploiting a nationally representative panel survey that allows us to adopt a life course perspective on social change through the succession of birth cohorts with distinct individual life course experiences (Fasang, and Mayer 2020; Mayer 2009; Ryder 1965).…”

Sustained and Universal Fertility Recuperation in Kazakhstan

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The impact of education and digitalization on female labour force participation in BRICS: an advanced panel data analysis

“…As a result, the discussion of female labour force participation cannot be separated from the discussion of fertility, as the two are inextricably linked. Generally, female labour force participation is high in countries with low fertility rates (Buyukkececi and Engelhardt, 2021).…”