Social Learning, Social Influence, and New Models of Fertility

Abstract

This book chapter offers a theoretical model of fertility control that accounts for diffusion of information through social learning and social influence. It is posited that diffusion can slow down or speed up fertility declines shape patterns of contraceptive choice and help or hinder family planning program efforts. The authors consider the US and other low-fertility settings suitable for testing diffusion models. The proposed empirical model is a variant of the interdependent preferences model proposed by Pollak (1976) and expanded by Alessie and Kapteyn (1991) and Case (1991). Evidence from recent studies suggests that adolescent fertility decisions and attitudes are influenced strongly by peers and friends as well as parents. Most of the research findings on social effects focus on adolescent fertility and confirm the importance of social effects on adolescent fertility. The authors caution that much of this literature is flawed in research design and overestimates the importance of social effects. Evidence suggests that the social effects that have contributed to fears about health strongly influenced use of oral contraceptives and IUDs during the 1960s and 1970s. Evidence also identifies the importance of social networks in the use of reproductive and contraceptive services. It is possible that the unacceptability of nonmaternal child care depressed fertility in the 1970s and that increased acceptance during the 1980s had a mild pronatalist effect on fertility during the 1980s and 1990s. The proposed empirical model estimates contraceptive use in the absence of social effects. Social effects affect the pace of aggregate fertility change. The pace of change in fertility determinants may not match the pace of fertility change itself. A social effects model must account for how networks are formed and change over time. It is hoped that social effects models will be developed and tested.