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Th. Fent, B. Diaz, A. Fürnkranz-Prskawetz:
"Family Policies in the Context of Low Fertility and Social Structure";
Report for Vienna Institute of Demography; Report No. Working Paper No. 2, 2011; 22 pages.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the effectivity of family policies in the context of different
assumptions regarding the social structure of a society. We use an agent based simulation
model to analyse the impact of family policies on individual fertility decisions and on cohort
fertility, intended fertility, and the fertility gap on the aggregate level. The crucial features of
our simulation model are the agents' heterogeneity with respect to age, income, parity, and
intended fertility, the social network and social influence. Our results indicate that both fixed
and income dependent child supports have a positive and significant impact on fertility.
However, several network and social influence parameters have the ability not only to
influence fertility itself but also the effectivity of family policies. Therefore, policymakers
aiming to transfer a certain policy mix that has proved successful from one country to another
one ignoring differences in the social structure may fail. Family policies can only be
successful if they explicitly take into account the characteristics of the society they are
assigned for.

Family policies, low fertility, social influence, social networks, social structure.