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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Labor Economics

Syracuse University

Center for Policy Research

Relative cohort size

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Role Of Relative Cohort Size And Relative Income In The Demographic Transition, Diane J. Macunovich Jan 1999

The Role Of Relative Cohort Size And Relative Income In The Demographic Transition, Diane J. Macunovich

Center for Policy Research

This paper summarizes the results of other analyses by the author with regard to the importance of relative cohort size (RCS) in determining male relative income (the income of young adults relative to prime-age workers) and general patterns of economic growth, and in turn influencing fertility in the currently more-developed nations. It then goes on to demonstrate that these same effects appear to have been operating in all of the 100-odd nations which have experienced the fertility transition since 1950. Parameter estimates based on the experience of all 189 countries identified by the United Nations between 1950 and 1995 are …


Relative Cohort Size: Source Of A Unifying Theory Of Global Fertility Transition, Diane J. Macunovich Jan 1999

Relative Cohort Size: Source Of A Unifying Theory Of Global Fertility Transition, Diane J. Macunovich

Center for Policy Research

Using United Nations estimates of age structure and vital rates for nearly 200 nations at five-year intervals from 1950 through 1995, this paper demonstrates how changes in relative cohort size appear to have affected patterns of fertility across nations since 1950--not just in developed countries, but perhaps even more importantly in countries as they pass through the demographic transition. The increase in relative cohort size (defined as the proportion of the population aged 15 to 24 relative to that aged 25 to 59) which occurs as a result of declining mortality rates among children and young adults during the demographic …