The Impact of Family Planning Program in Lowering Fertility†

Following the precipitous mortality decline in the developing countries after the World War II, the population explosion of developing countries has been a global concern. We analyze the impact of family planning program effort of developing countries in the 20 century on fertility reduction. This paper studies if the family planning program impact is substantial and statistically significant in fertility reduction, after the endogeneity is controlled using total population, population density and government expenditure to GDP ratio as instrument variables, controlling for relevant economic variables that affect the desired level of fertility such as education level, per capita income and urbanization. We also analyze if family planning program impact varies by region, religion and income level and find that the program is most affective in countries whose GDP per capita is between $1,000 and $2,000, countries in the Middle East and countries with no major religion.