The Changing Relationship between Fertility and Economic Development: Evidence from 337 European Regions Between 1996 and 2010

Recent research by Myrskyla, Kohler, and Billari (2009) and Luci and Thevenon (2010) have determined that, at the country level, the relationship between development and fertility becomes positive when development is very high. This project examines this finding at the regional level for 337 regions across 21 European countries. Investigating this association at the regional level will show whether this change occurs only at the national level, or at the regional level as well. In addition, it allows the specification of a country-by-year fixed effects model, thereby controlling for all country level, time-varying effects that so often confound estimates from normal fixed effects frameworks. Estimates indicate that the relationship between fertility and income is also convex at the regional level, with the turnaround occurring at about $32,000 year 2000 U.S. dollars. These estimates also suggest that it takes extremely high levels of per capita income to reach replacement level fertility.