Determinants of Fertility in a Developing Society: The Case of Sierra Leone

In the new economic approach to fertility behaviour it is argued that as children become more expensive fewer will be born. The theory identifies the value of human time as the most important component of the price of children. Since the bearing and rearing of children is a time-intensive activity for the mother, her calculation of time is believed to be a crucial determinant of household fertility. In the paper this proposition is tested by using survey data from Sierra Leone. Three alternative models are used to measure the value of women's time. In the first model, value of the mother's time is measured by her educational attainment. In the second model, the woman's current monthly income is assumed to indicate the value of her time. In the third model, value of time is treated as an endogenous variable determined by the household's socio-economic characteristics. The household's anticipated child mortality rate and its extended family characteristics are introduced as other important determinants of fertility in Sierra Leone. It is believed that with the inclusion of these latter variables the household model becomes better suited to explain fertility behaviour in a developing society. The salient statistical results indicate that the number of children born in a family is negatively influenced by the housewife's current income and positively related to the incidence of anticipated child mortality and the size of the extended family.