This presentation is based on a joint work with Seung-Hun Chung from Ohio State University, Neha Deopa from Aix-Marseille School of Economics and Lyman Stone from McGill University.

The authors investigate the impact of religious authority’s active promotion for higher fertility. In 2008, Georgia’s Orthodox Church Patriarch began to personally baptise new third or higher parity Orthodox child. By using macro-level and micro-level data and analysis, the authors show that this measure substantially increased Georgia’s fertility rate (around 20 percent in the case of total fertility rate), especially third or higher parity birth rate. Marriage rate has increased too. This result shows that even in post-demographic transition societies, the religious authorities might have an ability to influence the fertility rate of the societies.

About the speaker

Dr. Kritika Saxena is a postdoctoral researcher at the department of Economics, Econometrics and Finance of the University of Groningen. She received her doctorate degree in Development Economics from the Geneva Graduate Institute, Switzerland. She also holds experience of working with international research and policy organisations like J-PAL South Asia, the World Bank, and UN special agencies like WIPO and ITC. Her research focuses on gender, social change and microfinance.

PART OF THE GENDER SEMINAR SERIES

The Gender Centre has developed this series of research seminars in order to offer a platform for exchange for students, doctoral students in particular, and researchers whose work includes a gender perspective. During this monthly series, researchers have the opportunity to discuss their work, meet peers from different disciplines at the Graduate Institute, as well as interact with other students, guest speakers and faculty members.

See the programme of this semester's Gender Seminar Series here.

Banner image: © ponsulak / Shutterstock.com