Escaping Malthus: Economic Growth and Fertility Change in the Developing World∗

Following mid-20 century predictions of Malthusian catastrophe, fertility in the developing world more than halved. We analyze how fertility change related to economic growth during this episode, using data on 2.3 million women from 255 surveys in 81 countries. We find different responses to fluctuations and long-run growth, both of them heterogeneous over the lifecycle. Fertility was procyclical but also declined and delayed with long-run growth; fluctuations late (but not early) in the reproductive period affected lifetime fertility. The results are consistent with economic models of the escape from the Malthusian trap, extended with a lifecycle and liquidity constraints. ∗We thank David Canning, Janet Currie, Hannes Schwandt, Moshe Hazan, Richard Rogerson, as well as conference and seminar participants at AEA/ASSA, Columbia, IFPRI, Penn, Penn State, Princeton, Stanford, Tel Aviv, NBER Summer Institute, and PopPov for comments. Maria Canals, Chitra Marti, and Reka Zempleni provided outstanding research assistance.