Data and Code for: Pensions and Fertility: Micro-Economic Evidence

Identifies the causal effect of pension generosity on women’s fertility behavior. It capitalizes on Brazil’s expansion of the pension system to rural workers, whose pension wealth subsequently more than tripled. Difference-in-differences, instrumental variable and event study methods show that the pension reform reduces the propensity of childbearing of women in fertile age by 8% in the short-run. Completed fertility declines by 1.3 children within 20 years after the reform, reducing the contribution base of the Pay-As-You-Go pension system in the long-run. The fertility response is strongest at higher birth parities, among older women and among mothers with sons.

Geographic Coverage:  Brazil

Time Period:   1981 – 2014

Universe: Brazilian women in fertile age (15-44 years).

Data Type(s):  administrative records data; aggregate data; census/enumeration data

 Data Sources:  IBGE Brazilian National Household Sample Survey (1981-90, 1992-93, 1995-99, 2001-09, 2011-14), Brazilian Census - IMPUMS International (1980, 1991, 2000), Demographic and Health Survey (1987, 1997), World Value Survey (1991, 1997), Globo coverage data (La Ferrara et al., 2012), Annual tariff rates (De Paiva Abreu, 2004), IBGE Complete Life Tables (1998), CPI data from the International Monetary Fund (2021), International Financial Statistics, GDP, production and (sectoral) employment data from the World Bank (2021), Exchange rates from the Federal Reserve of St. Louis (2021), Coffee and soy bean prices from Macrotrends (2021)

Unit of Observation:  individual