Abstract
Where connections between demography and politics are examined in the literature, it is largely in the context of the effects of male aspects of demography on phenomena such as political violence. This project aims to place the study of demographic variables’ influence on politics, particularly on democracy, squarely within the scope of political and social sciences, and to focus on the effects of woman-related demographics—namely, fertility rate. I test the hypothesis that demographic variables—female-related predictors, in particular—have an independent effect on political structure. Comparing countries over time, this study finds a growth in democracy when fertility rates decline. In the theoretical framework developed, it is family structure as well as the economic and political status of women that account for this change at the macro and micro levels. Findings based on data for more than 140 countries over three decades are robust when controlling not only for alternative effects but also for reverse causality and data limitations.
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Notes
Even excluding China, the drop in those countries (from 6.03 to 2.9) was comparable.
Within the context of democracy, modernization, and fertility, finding good instrumental variables for the estimation of two-stage least squares (2SLS) models is not feasible.
Information on this project can be found online (gapminder.com).
These data are also available online (https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Download/Standard/Interpolated/).
For further discussion of measurement issues, see Urdal (2011).
The CIA fact book is available online (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/).
This study counts all groups and individuals who self-identify as Muslim, which allows comparative analyses between countries. The number of Muslims is calculated by multiplying the United Nations 2009 total population estimate for each country by the single most recent and reliable estimate of the percentage of Muslims there. This calculation is based on the assumption that Muslim populations are growing at the same rate as each country’s general population, which is a conservative assumption. Sources include national censuses, demographic and health surveys, and general population surveys and studies.
Although other approaches such as a two-stage least square (2SLS) model are also potential solutions, a 2SLS model is unfeasible in the substantive context of this article. The power of such a model would be considerably limited because of the inability to find good instrumental variables in a model that already specifies independent variables related to development, age structure, and fertility, and where the outcome variable is democracy or democratization.
Even when I control for the effects of the percentage of women using contraceptives, which itself improves democratic conditions, the effect of decreasing fertility rates is still highly significant. Thus, the direct effect of contraceptive use on democracy is supplemented by the effect of decline in fertility rate on democratization.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the Israel Institute in Washington, DC; the Institute of Israel and Jewish Studies; and the Department of Political Science at Columbia University for their support. I thank Victor Asal, David Rousseau, Irene Guiter Mazer, and Greg Worley for their thoughts and comments in earlier stages of the development of this project.
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Appendix
Appendix
Countries Included in the Samples
With minor variations, most multivariate models include most of the following countries: Albania, Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cote d’Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Fiji, Finland, France, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Vietnam, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
A Robustness Test: The Role of Economic Conditions and the Fertility-Democracy Link in Poor Nations
Economic conditions and democracy affect each other, with the effect of democracy on the economy changing over time (Krieckhaus 2004). Whereas some work has indicated that democracy influences economic performance (Almeida and Ferreira 2002), the literature provides some support for the opposite causal direction as well (Barro 1999). Likewise, fertility has been shown to be influenced by economic growth (Perotti 1996). Along with political conditions, a key predictor of fertility is the country’s economy (Rouyer 1987). Hypothesis 1 states that the effect of fertility rate on democracy holds even when economic effects are controlled for. Furthermore, my theoretical frameworks flesh out how fertility rate may be independent from economic variables in influencing politics. To increase the robustness of this finding, I examine the fertility-democracy link for a sample that is limited to countries with minimal economic development. If this additional test yields findings that are in line with the hypotheses, this would add to the overall robustness of the conclusions.
To control for this alternative, I conduct analyses for poor countries only; results are presented in Table 6. Support for the key theoretical contention remains, demonstrating that fertility rate declines are associated with higher levels of democracy. The coefficient on fertility rate is negative, highly significant, and approximately of the same size as in Model 1 in Table 1. Even in a sample of countries with poor economic conditions, the effect of fertility on democracy is systematic and of a comparable magnitude to that in the universe of nations. Hypothesis 1, therefore, wins unequivocal support in this robustness test as well.
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Sommer, U. Women, Demography, and Politics: How Lower Fertility Rates Lead to Democracy. Demography 55, 559–586 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-018-0655-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-018-0655-x