Socio-economic determinants of fertility in Botswana : testing the microeconomic theory of fertility

TL;DRAbstract

In recent years economists have begun to look more closely at the microeconomic determinants of family fertility in an attempt to provide a better theoretical and empirical explanation for the observed falling birth rates associated with Stage III of the demographic transition. In doing this, they have drawn on the traditional neoclassical theory of household and consumer behaviour for their basic analytical model, and have utilised the principles of economy and optimisation to explain family-size decisions.The conventional theory of consumer behaviour assumes that an individual with a given set of tastes or preferences for a range of goods (i.e., a utility function) tries to maximise the satisfaction derived from consuming these goods subject to his own income constraint and the relative prices of all goods. In the application of this theory to fertility analysis, children are considered as a special kind of consumption good so that fertility becomes a rational economic response to th

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