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G. Feichtinger, A. Fürnkranz-Prskawetz, A. Seidl, C. Simon, S. Wrzaczek:
"Do Egalitarian Societies Boost Fertility?";
Bericht für Vienna Institute of Demography; Berichts-Nr. 2, 2013; 21 S.

In general, the spreading of egalitarian family values has often been associated with a decline in fertility. However, recently a rebound in fertility has been observed in several industrialized countries. A possible explanation of this trend may be the spread of egalitarian values that induced institutional changes - such as expansion of child care facilities and father leave - fostering the combination of parenthood and the egalitarian lifestyle. In our paper we build up a formal model to study the diffusion from traditional to egalitarian gender-behavior and its impact on fertility. We find that the long-run development of the total fertility within a population not only depends on the pace of diffusion of egalitarianism and the extent to which social interactions affect the egalitarians´ birth rates, but also on the initial number of traditionalists and egalitarians. We show under which conditions a fertility decline is followed by a subsequent recovery.

Egalitarianism, family models, diffusion, fertility