limited access to contraception is an important driver of high fertility rates in West Africa. We do not find support for this … about family size and contraception, and social pressure. Free contraception did not influence fertility even in combination …

Is the persistently high fertility in West Africa today rooted in the decades of forced labor migration under colonial …, and lower realized and desired fertility today. We show evidence suggesting that the inherited pattern of low … rule out women's empowerment or improvements in human and physical capital as pathways for the fertility decline. These …

This paper examines a novel mechanism linking fertility and growth. Household fertility is determined by relative wages … of women and men. Increasing women's wages reduces fertility by raising the cost of children relatively more than … household income. Lower fertility raises the level of capital per worker which in turn, since capital is more complementary to …