Fertility, female labor participation and income in East Asia

This study aims to apply two recently discovered relationships that describe fertility recovery in developed countries to East Asia: the U-shaped relationship between fertility and FLP (female labor participation) and the inverse-J-shaped relationship between fertility and income.

It uses a panel data set of 176 countries including 13 East Asian countries from 1990 to 2014. Pooled ordinary least squares, fixed-effects and random-effects models are tested.

The main findings are the following points concerning East Asia: The U-shape and the inverse-J-shape are confirmed, suggesting that fertility recovery could be realized if both FLP and income are high enough and increasing; in the region, the U-shape is peculiar. Lower-income countries’ data move from the upper-right to the bottom, whereas higher-income countries’ data move from the upper-left to the bottom; no country in the region has reached the stage where both FLP and income are high enough.

This is the first paper on East Asia to show the U-shape and the inverse-J-shape concerning fertility recovery and the peculiarity of the U-shape in East Asia. It explains the background of low fertility using the relationship between fertility, FLP and income.