| Age at marriage is increasing is decreasing in nearly all regions of the world. Five hypotheses for changes in marriage trends (economic modernization, supply and demand, social/cultural influences, healthcare quality, and longevity risk sharing) are tested through cross-country regression analyses of the timing and prevalence of marriage, using 40 explanatory variables from 156 countries. Ample evidence of the impact of economic modernization and education is found. The influence of cultural beliefs is evidenced by the presence of religious variables in several selected regression equations. Social Security's benefit-to-cost ratio is found to be higher the smaller the marriage age gap. A downward trend of marriage age difference implies increased costs to the Social Security program, implying a larger income transfer from future generations. Fertility rate exhibits considerable cross-country variations and have declined significantly across time in most countries. The extent to which fertility behaviors are influenced by exogenous components such as financial development and social security tax is analyzed, using a panel data from 169 countries from 1972–2000. To confront an endogeneity problem, the national legal origin is used as an instrumental variable. To overcome an omitted variable bias, an exogenous measure of family planning effort is included in panel regression models. The result indicates that people in countries with lower levels of financial development tend to have more children to substitute an investment in the capital markets, which is not easily accessible or not available to them. This evidence shed light on the welfare implication regarding a “poverty trap” problem in that those who are already poor or those in less financially developed countries are more likely to have more children, which will lower their overall welfare, and further reduce their chance to invest in the capital markets. Social security tax also has a negative impact on fertility behaviors. |
