Regional social capital and fertility rate: Municipality-level analysis in Finland

While many studies find that received social capital matters for childbearing on the individual level, few studies have investigated how regional social factors relate to fertility rates. In the current study, we used data from 299 municipalities in Finland to examine how different measures of social capital are associated with total fertility rates at the regional level. Data for social indicators were derived from a large national survey (n = 100 750), and data on fertility and covariates were derived from population registries. We applied spatial autoregressive error models to account for spatial autocorrelation between neighboring municipalities. Regions with higher social support and more frequent social contacts had higher total fertility rates, whereas trust, community participation, cultural activities or loneliness were not associated with fertility. These associations were particularly pronounced for fertility rates among individuals aged 20-39 than in other age groups. Moreover, no association was found for regional socio-economic composite score. The results suggest that community-level social capital may be relevant for fertility trends.