Defining and measuring the supply of children: Some anthropological considerations

Abstract

Recent versions of the economic theory of fertility have attempted to make the framework more generally applicable to all types of populations through an explicit treatment of supply considerations in combination with an analysis of the determinants of demand. Easterlin has suggested that the supply of children to an individual couple is determined by biological constraints in combination with the Davis‐Blake intermediate variables and with mortality patterns. However, anthropological studies of household structure, fertility, adoption, and migration point to a broader definition of the supply of children and to a more dynamic view of the ways in which supply and demand for household members are adjusted over the life‐cycle of the household.