The integrative potential of a fertility model: An analytical test

Abstract In an earlier paper a working model of marital fertility was presented.(1) That model grew out of a close study of Becker's economic model for fertility analysis.(2) Becker's model was modified in several respects in order to meet a number of major objections levelled against it by Judith Blake, Deborah Freedman, and others.(3) The purpose of the present paper is to examine how far the model presented earlier can serve as a 'binder' for the interpretative schemes now available in the literature on fertility differentials. More specifically, the objective is to identify the underlying explanatory factors of a number of analytical hypotheses concerning fertility differentials, and to examine whether the factors thus identified can be located in the fertility model presented in the earlier paper.(4) Little attention will be paid to the causal directions, if any, recognized in the hypotheses studied, nor will we attempt to provide a systematic review of empirical findings.