Does financial development influence fertility rate in South Asian economies? An empirical insight

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the effect of financial development on fertility rate along with other major indicators in select South Asian economies over the period 1990–2016. The study uses various statistical techniques such as Johansen–Fisher panel co‐integration approaches are employed to examine the long‐run relationship among the variables and for statistically quantile regression is employed. The study finds that the variables under consideration are found to be cointegrated, that is, they are found to be having a long‐term relationship. By using three different measures of financial sector development, it is also observed that financial sector development has invariably led to a declining fertility rate in the south Asian region during the study period.