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  • Title: Interaction among fertility, income investment in human capital, female labor force participation, and industrialization in Korea.
    Author: Ro KK, Huh J.
    Journal: J East Asian Aff; 1982; 2(1):170-206. PubMed ID: 12338615.
    Abstract:
    This study focuses on analyzing how the determinants of fertility are formed by demographic and other background (exogenous) variables selected, endogenizing most of the determinants of fertility in analyzing their impacts on fertility, examining the feedback effects of fertility on some of its determinants, and using cross-sectional data of Korea where the unit of observation is a city or gun (county). The conceptual model used in this study postulates that the exogenous variables have a varying degreee of impact on the fertility rate by influencing the intermediate variables. The variables representing the intensity of family planning program are included as intermediate variables. The model is tested with 2-stage least squares and uses the regressions of log linear forms weighted by the population sizes of individual cities and guns. The effects of exogenous variables on the intermediate variables are estimated through the 1st stage multiple regressions. The effects on the fertility rate of the intermediate variables, which are estimated by the 1st stage regressions, are estimated by the 2nd stage least squares. Data used are of 33 cities and 144 guns of Korea for 1978. The data collected are classified into 6 categories: demographic; socioeconomic; education; health variables; contraceptive efficiency variables; and industrialization and occupation variables. The principal study finding was the rediscovery of the importance of the investment in human capital in affecting fertility behavior. A distinctive study feature was to bring out health as an indispensible component of human capital. The education and health equations showed that an increase in income, urbanization, and declining death rate would all contribute to increasing the investment in education. The investment in health appeared to be a substitute for that in education in the 1ststage education equation but a complementary good in health equation. The 2nd stage fertility equations indicated that an increase in the investment in human capital, either education or health, would significantly reduce fertility. The study showed that an investment in human capital is an effective means of lowering fertility, which has a feedback effect of increasing the investment in human capital. It has also been suggested that what are coming to be termed the thresholds in fertility reduction are triggered by the combination of low mortality and more education. It is believed that Korea experienced the thresholds around 1975 when the crude birthrate reached 24.3, a substantial and sustained decline from 43.3 in 1955.
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