Economic Uncertainty and Fertility: A Meta-Analysis
Giammarco Alderotti, Università di Roma - Sapienza
Michela Baccini, University of Florence
Daniele Vignoli, University of Florence
Articles were collected systematically, using an electronic database (Scopus) and applying inclusion criteria to decide which ones to include in our sample. In order to avoid ecological correlation fallacy, we considered only micro-level studies, limiting the search to Europe to make the analyses more comparable. So far, 120 articles were collected and 60 of them were correctly coded and included in the meta-sample.
Preliminary results are available and they show that significant differences exist between men and women, between transition to parenthood and to higher parities, and over time. Nevertheless, the hypothesis of homogeneity within groups was rejected by all the tests done. On this basis, we need to be careful when interpreting the preliminary results and we have to go deeper into the analysis, performing a meta-regression in order to study the heterogeneity, which is going to be the next step.
Presented in Session 103: Fertility in Times of Economic Uncertainty