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OCR for page 78
Can a couple's fertility
7 behavior impose costs
on society at large?
A key policy question in considering population growth is whether a
couple's childbearing decisions impose costs on, or provide benefits for,
over families. If such externalities (effects extemal to the decision maker)
exist, Here may be a role for public policies that seek to incorporate the
social costs and benefits of fertility into private decisions about family size.
As in the case of pollution externalities (see Question 3), an argument
can be made that equating social and private costs yields gains that could
potentially increase the well-being of all members of society.
In considering this question, there is an important distinction to be made
between true externalities and pecuniary externalities. True externalities are
external costs and benefits that are not mediated through markets. For
example, because access to the air is unrestricted, manufacturers do not
factor into their production decisions Be costs imposed on others by Heir air
pollution. It is possible to envision systems of property rights that would either
give people the right to clean air or manufacturers the right to pollute. Under
either system, trading of the rights would theoretically result in an optimal
level of pollution, at which the social costs of an additional unit of pollution
would equal the social gains of the associated increment of production. Thus,
introduction of property rights, or of government regulations that achieve
the same end, results in a net gain to society. Of course, He manner in
which these gains are distributed depends on the way property rights are
defined and allocated, but in principle the gains could be distributed so as
to make everyone in society better off. For this reason, welfare economics
unambiguously recommends policy intervention to correct market failures
resulting from true externalities.
78
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FERTILITY BEHAVIOR
79
In contrast, pecuniary extemalities are market-registered actions that benefit
some people and hurt others, and may not result in a net gain or loss to
society. Policy interventions to counteract a pecuniary extemality imply a
value judgment favoring redistribution of income from one group to another.
For instance, a farmer's decision to plant an extra acre of wheat will slightly
depress the market price of wheat. Although He price decrement is minute,
it affects the entire crop so dirt Be total loss of income to other farmers is
a palpable amount. Ibis loss to farmers, however, is a gain to consumers.
Policies that restrict agricultural acreage or crop production, which are often
found in developed countries, represent a political determination to redistribute
income from consumers to farmers.
A decision to bear children can impose both true and pecuniary externalities
on over members of society. In this chapter we consider the conclusions
of some previous chapters to determine Me role of externalities in private
childbearing decisions. We discuss three situations in which private fertility
decisions have social repercussions: in the use of common-property resources,
in the labor market, and in the intrafamily allocation of goods. The chapter
concludes win a discussion of policy implications and options.
COMMON-PROPERTY RESOURCES AND
PUBLICLY SUBSIDIZED GOODS AND SERVICES
As discussed under Question 3, population growth can exacerbate the
externalities inherent in common-property resources. Resources for which
well-defined rights of access either do not exist or are not enforced are
typically overexploited and subject to damage. These include environmental
resources like air and water, some forests and fisheries, and some ag~icultwal
land. While the cause of problems is the absence of limits on use, the
demand for many common-property resources increases ninth population
growth, particularly those resources required for food production or related
to human settlement. If population growth contributes to long-run resource
degradation or destruction, the cost falls on the society as a whole, not just
on those making childbearing decisions.
A related extemal effect involves He public sector provision of infrastructure.
All governments assume responsibility for providing certain public goods that
He private sector is unable to provide because of He difficulty of charging
users, He large investments required, or the inefficiency of excluding potential
users. Such goods include transportation systems, sanitation and water supply,
and national defense.
Population growth can have a beneficial effect on He provision of public
goods by permitting He exploitation of economies of scale to reduce per
capita costs. However, economies of scale in the production of most public
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POP Ul=70N GROWTH Ad ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
infrastructure tend to diminish as the size of the population to be seated
increases (Henderson, 1985), so that population growth beyond certain levels
confers no additional benefit. Moreover, rapid population grown in developing
countries, particularly in urban areas, contributes to congestion and excessive
demands on existing infrastructures (Linn, 1983) and may promote disease
transmission. Because these congestion costs must be borne by the society as
a whole, not just by the families who bear many children, rapid population
growth may have net negative extemal effects on public welfare.
The logic supporting publicly subsidized education is usually of a different
sort, stressing the social interest in having a well-educated electorate and
labor force or the importance of supplying a population's basic needs.
Nevertheless, public education also creates externalities. Publicly subsidized
education disproportionately benefits families with children, at least in the
short run, and a couple's decision to have an extra child imposes costs on all
taxpayers. Some of these costs will be reimbursed by future tats payments by
the educated child to support the education of other people's children. Given
the high rates of return to social investment in schooling that we noted above,
the added taxes paid by an additional educated adult may be substantial.
But the present value of those future tax payments may be less than current
educational costs. Moreover, both families and governments typically find
it difficult to finance current educational costs by borrowing against future
earnings. Thus, the bit of an additional child into a society that offers
subsidized education would impose extemal costs. Subsidies for the aged
work in the opposite direction. In a society Hat offered tax-financed social
security benefits (blIt not public education), the birth of an additional child
would confer e~ctemal benefits, and fertility would fall below the socially
optimal level (Willis, 1985~.
WAGES AND RENTS
In answering Question 4, we concluded that more rapid population growth
can tend to depress wages and raise He return to capital and land. Hence,
it is clear that childbearing decisions result, at the least, in pecuniary
externalities. Population growth among the co-owners of a common resource
wills of course, dilute each owner's share of the resource. In general, families
win relatively large amounts of capital or land are advantaged by other
families' high fertility, while families that rely primarily on labor income
are disadvantaged.
A much more difficult question is whether true externalities also exist in
a competitive market of self-interested families. In other words, does higher
fertility result not merely in a redistribution from worked to landowners,
but in a net loss of welfare to society as a whole? This line of research is
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FERTILITY BEHAVIOR
81
comparatively new and still entirely theoretical in nature. Preliminary results
(Nerlove et al., 1984; Willis, 1985) indicate that under certain restrictive
assumptions-such as a population of identical individuals-there are no true
externalities, but that if some of those assumptions are relaxed-for instance,
if the population is heterogeneous-there may be tine externalities. However,
it is clear that true externalities do exist if individuals care not only about
their own families, but about the extent of poverty or the degree of income
inequality in the society. An increase in fertility will, at least in the short
run, shift income from landless workers to owners of land and capital.
This shift will tend to increase both the number of people who are poor
(defined in absolute income terms) and the degree of income inequality in
the society. To the extent that these results are believed by the society to
be undesirable, there is a social rationale for restricting fertility, similar to
the rationale for land redistribution.
INTRAFAMILY EXTERNALITIES
If parents do not behave altruistically out of concern for the welfare
of their children, intergenerational externalities will exist even within the
same family line. Parental altruism is an intuitively appealing premise, since
family behavior interpretable in this manner seems pervasive across cultures.
Indeed, one can argue that altruistic family behavioral norms reflect the
importance of intergenerational cooperation, representing a nonmarket social
institution that serves to internalize potential external effects. And, in a stable
culture, it is not unreasonable to expect that family size norms embody
reliable information about the economic conditions that will be faced by
the next generation. The near-universality of parental altruism and its ability
to compensate for intergenerational external effects probably explains why
reproductive rights are ceded to the family in almost all societies, even
though population size has important collective consequences.
Of course, parental altruism can fail. Parents may decide to have children
in order to exploit them economically with no concern for their well-being.
Similarly, parents may abuse or neglect children. Many societies have laws
that seek to protect children from exploitation, abuse, or neglect by adults,
suggesting that family sovereignty is not always considered an immutable
principle. But even if parents make fertility decisions that by to take the
future well-being of children into account, their expectations may riot be
realized. Because of the scope and speed of the social and economic changes
that characterize developing countries, families may be unable to correctly
anticipate the impact on He family of an additional child.
If existing children are disadvantaged by a subsequent bird in the family,
then one can ask whether there is a legitimate role for government intervention
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POPULATION GROWTH AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
to represent the interests of those children in parents' childbearing decisions.
Such interventions have precedents in child labor laws and compulsory school
legislation. If this basis for social intervention is accepted, then the justification
for government programs related to fertility becomes much broader than if
externalities are confined to interfamily relations. Similar questions could
also be wised about relations between husband and wife. These questions
involve major issues about the proper basis for social decision making and,
ultimately, about values-issues that lie well beyond our competence.
POLICY IMPLICATIONS OF POPULATION EXTERNALITIES
Under Question 6 and again in the conclusion of this report, we argue
that the provision of family planning services increases parents' welfare by
allowing them to achieve the number and spacing of births they desire. Thus
family planning programs have a solid rationale on the basis of within-family
effects. Where negative externalities from childbearing exist, the voluntary
use of family planning services by one family confers external benefits on
others, making family planning a particularly attentive policy instrument.
But the existence of negative externalities implies that even if all parents
achieve their desired family size, the number of birds may still be above
the social optimum. A case can then be made for policies "beyond family
planning." It must be recognized immediately that any policy entails some
cost-at a minimum, an administrative cost-and Hat the case for such policies
can only be made by comparing costs to benefits. Policies Cat go beyond
family planning may also impose welfare costs and require families to forgo
the satisfaction from additional children.
Principles of welfare economics suggest that one should distinguish among
three kinds of policies: those that alter childbearing incentives via taxes or
subsidies, those that change "tastes" for children, and those that impose
fused limits on the number of children per family. We first compare the
first and last kinds of policies, then consider the second.
If He other costs of a given fertility reduction are equal, the last policy
is the least attractive because it will lead to a substantial welfare loss for
those people who place a high value on bearing an additional child but
who are prevented from doing so. Furthermore, the means of enforcing
quantity rationing are almost certain to be coercive, impinging on personal
liberties in the very sensitive area of reproductive rights. Compared with
quantity rationing, an advantage of altering incentive structures by a system
of subsidies or taxes is Hat the people who choose to reduce Heir fertility in
response to a rise in He "cost" of children are likely to place He lowest value
on having an additional child. This favorable selectivity feature suggests that
the private welfare loss to childbearing couples from a reduction in ferdli~
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FERTILITY BEHAVIOR
83
will be less when incentive schemes are used than when quantity rationing is
imposed. Another clear advantage for incentive schemes is that childbearing
remains purely voluntary. One must, of course, be aware of other effects
of policy, such as their impact on different social groups and the potential
for abuses in their implementation.
The advantage of incentive schemes becomes less clear-cut when children's
welfare is introduced. Many policies that would work by raising the relative
costs of children (e.g., reducing subsidies for schooling, lowering tax
deductions for children) have the effect of Distributing income from families
that have children and may thereby compromise other social goals. Other
forms of incentive programs, which avoid this effect, include incentives
to delay mamage, to space births further apart, or to use various forms
of contraception. Less direct actions include providing old-age support for
persons without children. Governmentally imposed incentives that affect many
forms of personal behavior are common in many societies, and incentive
programs to alter fertility do not appear different in nature from most of
them.
A comparison of incentives and coercion also introduces equity issues,
similar to those related to a comparison of a volunteer and a universal (a
lotte~y-based) draft. In short, poorer people tend to find the incentives more
attractive than richer people, who may, in effect, disproportionately "buy
out" of the incentive scheme to restrict births. So the favorable effect of
an incentive program on the distribution of income may be partly offset by
unfavorable effects on the distribution of children by class. Nevertheless,
the voluntary nature of incentives programs at least has He advantage that
the outcome for a particular family is freely chosen.
Government programs designed to change "tastes" for children are difficult
to evaluate from He viewpoint of welfare economics, which takes tastes as a
given. But it is clear that a change in preference for children relative to market
goods, which leads to altered fertility, might resolve problems of external
effects related to population growth. However, programs designed to effect
that change pose some potential problems. Persuasion campaigns in the mass
media can shade into propaganda that involves deception and misinformation.
Unless Hey are done with sensitivity, they can stigmatize children as well
as adults who choose to have them. One could, however, take the position
that such campaigns are simply designed to counteract pronatalist norms and
customs developed under earlier conditions. ~ most populations, powerful
norms governing family behavior are pronatalist because a major function
of the family has been to ensure reproduction of both itself and He society
of which it is a pan.
Over kinds of policy changes fit less readily into the categories of welfare
economics. Mandated changes~ften adaptive-in He status of women, greater
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POPUl~ION GROWTH AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
emphasis on rural development, and many other development programs
basically involve changes in the structure of society and can be expected to
have some effect on fertility (for a discussion of these issues, see Ridker,
1976; Schutjer and Stokes, 1984; Bulamo, 1984~. Besides advancing other
social goals, such programs affect fertility either through changes in incentives
or changes in tastes, rather than through quantity rationing.
CONCLUSIONS
Private fertility decisions have several external effects. First, where there
are common-property resources, population growth can result in congestion
or over-rapid resource degradation. Second, publicly subsidized entitlements
to education or social security can cause childbearing to have either external
costs or benefits, depending on the tax system, the discount rate, and a
child's prospective lifetime income profile. Similarly, the provision of public
infrastructure can result in either negative or positive externalities, depending
on whether the infrastructure is subject to congestion or to economies of scale.
Third, population growth tends to benefit holders of land and capital and hurt
those who depend primarily on wages for income. Fourth, parental fertility
decisions may not always be in the* children's best interests, particularly
when parents underestimate the pace and consequences of social change over
the* children's lifetimes.
These effects are likely to result in a negative external effect of childbearing
in most developing counties, where there are no social security systems and
where economies of scale in infrastructure are more than counterbalanced
by congestion costs. When negative externalities exist, a minimum policy
prescription would include the subsidized provision of family planning services
to allow couples to achieve their desired levels of fertility. Reducing the
number of unwanted birds in a given family results both in direct welfare
gains to the family and in gains to society at large. To fully overcome the
negative externalities, however, would require additional policy action. If the
external effects are deemed sizable enough to warrant policy intervention,
alterations in incentive structures appear far more appealing from the viewpoint
of welfare economics Man does quantity rationing. It is important to note,
however, Mat current data and theory are inadequate to quantify the size
of external effects; certainly, there is no evidence to suggest that drastic
financial or legal restrictions on childbearing are warranted.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
family planning
