DYNAMICS OF FEMALE FERTILITY IN INDONESIA, THAILAND AND THE PHILIPPINES, 1980-2014

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Sharifah Nur Syafiqah Binti Syed Omar
Thirunaukarasu Subramaniam
Mazlan Majid
Nanthakumar Loganathan

Abstract

ASEAN-3 countries displayed a high fertility rate and infant mortality rate in the beginning of the formation of ASEAN in 1967, but towards the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, there is a reversal of this pattern. Literature review on the determinants of female fertility reveals the importance of infant mortality, income, female secondary education, female employment and age dependency as key determinants of female fertility. This study, therefore, attempts to identify the determinants of female fertility for the ASEAN-3 countries, namely Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. Firstly, using the Johansen cointegration method, we identified the presence of a long-run relationship between female fertility rate, infant mortality, income, female secondary education, female employment and age dependency ratio for all three countries. Secondly, we identified three major determinants of female fertility for Indonesia as female education, age dependency ratio and infant mortality which is in line with the theory. For Thailand, two main determinants of female fertility include female education and income. For the Philippines, two important variables that determine female fertility are female employment and infant mortality. Finally, we found a deviation of fertility rate from the short-run to the long-run equilibrium for those three countries, with the highest and lowest speed of adjustment recorded for the Philippines and Indonesia, respectively.


Keywords: female fertility, secondary education, female employment, age dependency ratio, cointegration



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