On the Doorstep of Adulthood: Empowering Economic and Fertility Choices of Young Women

Lars Ivar Oppedal Berge, Kjetil Bjorvatn (), Fortunata Makene, Linda Helgesson Sekei, Vincent Somville and Bertil Tungodden
Additional contact information
Lars Ivar Oppedal Berge: Department of Business and Management, Postal: NHH, Department of Business and Management, Helleveien 30, N-5045 Bergen, Norway
Kjetil Bjorvatn: Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Postal: NHH, Department of Economics, Helleveien 30, N-5045 Bergen, Norway, https://www.nhh.no/en/employees/faculty/kjetil-bjorvatn/
Fortunata Makene: Economic and Social Research Foundation
Linda Helgesson Sekei: NIRAS

No 15/2022, Discussion Paper Series in Economics from Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics

Abstract: We report from a large-scale randomized controlled trial of women empowerment in Tanzania investigating how two different empowerment strategies, economic empowerment and reproductive health empowerment, shape the economic and fertility choices of young women when they transition into adulthood. The analysis builds on a rich data set (survey, experimental, and medical data) collected over more than five years. The economic empowerment reduces poverty, while teenage pregnancy increases with both economic and reproductive health empowerment. The increase in fertility comes from a positive income effect and by women entering earlier into a relationship. We also provide evidence of the importance of social norms and labor market flexibility in explaining the income and relationship effects on fertility. The findings provide new insights on the economics of fertility, and show the importance of a comprehensive approach to women empowerment.

Keywords: Women empowerment; Economic empowerment; Fertility; Poverty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 71 pages
Date: 2022-10-27
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-hea and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://hdl.handle.net/11250/3028686 Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: On the Doorstep of Adulthood: Empowering Economic and Fertility Choices of Young Women (2022)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2022_015

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Paper Series in Economics from Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics NHH, Department of Economics, Helleveien 30, N-5045 Bergen, Norway. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Karen Reed-Larsen ().