The impact of income redistribution on fertility in Canada.

This paper speculates on the role of income redistribution as a means of raising fertility in Canada. It is argued that if the relationship between income and fertility is non-linear at the household level, then changes in the income distribution in a society have important consequences for changes in aggregate fertility. In order to test this hypothesis, a simple fertility model is estimated using micro-data collected in the 1981 Canadian Census. The relationship between income and fertility is found to be nonlinear with properties that indicate that transfers of income from "rich" to "poor" households will likely further depress the overall level of fertility in Canada.