Unemployment and Fertility: A Long Run Relationship.

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Abstract

The paper examines the relationship between the unemployment rate and the fertility rate in a number of European countries along with Japan and the US. We use fractional integration and cointegration techniques to establish this long run relationship. The analysis shed some light on the degree of persistence of the series, and on whether policy actions are required for highly persistent series. The evidence suggests that these two variables (unemployment and fertility rates) are not related in the long run. However, in the short run, assuming that unemployment rate is weakly exogenous, the coefficient relating the two variables is found to be negative in four countries: the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the US.