Abstract
We theoretically demonstrate that a decline in an economy’s total fertility rate occurs with urbanization. If there are no regional differences in fertility rates, the decline in the economy’s total fertility rate should be explained by a decrease in the number of children per woman. However, if there are regional differences in fertility rates, urbanization can depress the economy’s total fertility rate even if the number of children per woman does not decline due to urbanization. We construct an overlapping generations model with two regions (u and r). Region u has a lower fertility rate, but its higher wage keeps attracting more workers who will be parents. Since the economy’s total fertility rate is the weighted sum of the low fertility rate in region u and the high fertility rate in region r, urbanization and a decline in the economy’s total fertility rate are observed simultaneously, even if urbanization does not change the regional fertility rates. An implication for population policies aimed at increasing the economy’s total fertility rate is provided. Such policies must not only focus on increasing the fertility rate in each region, but also consider migration to regions with lower (higher) fertility rates.
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Notes
The urbanization rate in a country is the ratio of the population in urban areas to the total population of the country.
World Bank Open Data: https://data.worldbank.org/
This model is an extension of the model of Hashimoto and Naito (2021), in which the provision of public childcare facilities and taxation are not explicitly considered.
For regional differences in the waitlisted children issue, see Hashimoto and Naito (2021). As for the term “waitlisted children”, please see the following website: https://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/org/pamphlet/dl/serviceguide2022.pdf
In general, there are two types of parents: those who do not want to use childcare facilities, and those who want to work part- or full-time and they would like to use childcare facilities. This model only considers the latter.
If the assigned childcare facility does not support the work schedules of parents, they will be forced to significantly reduce their working time when they have children. Childcare facilities are less useful for parents when they open late, close early, or frequently call parents for various reasons.
Restriction \(p_t > 0\) is valid. In reality, there are mismatches in the location of childcare facilities and the content of the services provided. Therefore, an increase in childcare facilities does not always alleviate the problem of waitlisted children. Kawabata (2014) presented an empirical study on location mismatches.
We assume that \([p_t+(1-p_t)\mu ]zn_t^u <1\) is true. This ensures that the left side of (2) is positive, and it provides an upper bound for \(n_t^u>0\). \({\bar{z}}<1/ n_t^r\) is also assumed for \(s_t^r >0\). All of these restrictions and assumptions are attributed to a fundamental assumption that one unit of time endowed to each individual cannot be lent or borrowed between individuals.
\(\lambda >0\) reflects the efficiency of the government’s provision of childcare facilities. The childcare facilities and capital stock are assumed to depreciate perfectly within a period.
The sufficient condition for \(p_t < 1\) to hold for a given \(k_t\) gives the lower bound for capital/labor ratio in region u as follows: \((\lambda A (1-\gamma )^{1-\alpha } \tau )^\frac{-1}{\alpha } < \frac{k_t}{\phi _t}\),
The condition for \(p_t <1\) given in footnote 11 is revised in equilibrium as follows: \((\lambda A \left( 1-\gamma \right) ^{1-\alpha } \tau )^\frac{-1}{\alpha } < {{\bar{k}}}(\tau )\).
See Appendix B.
Notably, this model intentionally excludes the well-known channel through which wage rates and fertility are linked, although this link has been persuasively shown both theoretically and empirically in the literature.
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Acknowledgements
The previous version of this paper was presented at the 69th Annual Meeting of North American Regional Science Council of the RSAI held in Montreal 2022 and the 62nd Annual Meeting of the Southern Regional Science Association held in Savannah 2023. We are grateful to John Winters and Akiko Sakanishi for helpful comments and discussions in these meetings. We also wish to the editor and the anonymous reviewers for comments and suggestions.
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Appendices
Derivation of (16)
Substituting (11) and (12) into (15), we obtain
Considering that \(p_t\) in (A.1) is a function of \(\frac{\phi _t}{k_t}\) as in (14), the derivative of \(\phi _t\) with respect to \(k_t\) is obtained as
Using the implicit function theorem for the case \(\frac{\phi _t}{k_t}>0\), \(\phi _t\) can be expressed as a function of \(k_t\):
Then, the integration of (A.2) shows that \(\phi _t\) is a linear function of \(k_t\) such that
where \(\Omega (\tau )\) is characterized by the parameters in (A.1).
Proof of convexity of \(\Psi _1\)
Considering that \(s^u_t\) and \(s^r\) are constant, as in (28) and (30), and differentiating (26) with respect to \(k_t\), we derive
As \((s_t^u-s^r)\) is positive and \(\frac{\partial m_t}{\partial k_t}\) is negative, the sign of (B.1) is strictly positive. Moreover, differentiating (B.1) with respect to \(k_t\) yields the following derivative:
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Hashimoto, H., Naito, T. Regional differences in childcare environment, urbanization, and fertility decline. Lett Spat Resour Sci 17, 8 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12076-024-00369-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12076-024-00369-9