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We revisit fertility analysis in Tunisia by examining family interference in birth control through: woman's marriage age, post-marriage delay in the first use of contraception, past and current contraceptive use, and choice of the birth control methods. Using data from the 2001 PAP-FAM Tunisian survey, we find that the significant effects of covariates arise and vanish across stage-specific equations as women progress in their lifecycle. In Tunisia, family links and socio-cultural environment appear to greatly shape fertility regulation in the direction of higher fertility. This calls for more intensive involvement of the extended families in family planning policies. This also suggests that the resurgence of traditionalist politico-religious movements, often associated with youth radicalization, may affect future fertility in Tunisia through an increase in family influences on birth control by married women.

This research empirically checks the effect of uncertainty on aging-saving link that is indirectly captured by an auxiliary variable: the unemployment. It looks at the nexus population aging and savings by bringing out the unemployment context importance in determination saving behavior notably in a setting of unavailability of unemployment allowance. To better estimate population aging, it considers the old-age dependency ratio besides the total dependency one, which is the usually indicator used. Applying the Structural VAR model, the variance decomposition technique and the response impulse function, on Tunisia during 1970–2019, it puts on show that elderly do not dissave in a context of enduring unemployment and unavailability of unemployment allowance. Unemployment is an important factor able to shaping the saving behavior and to distort the life cycle hypothesis’s prediction. Consequently, the life cycle hypothesis cannot be validated under uncertainty. Hence, aging does not to alter savings systematically. The nature of aging-saving relationship is upon to social and economic context.

Fertility analysis in Tunisia is revisited by focusing on regulation instruments instead of the number of births or the number of children alive. In Muslim societies, in which marriage is the exclusive acknowledged childbearing context, a woman may be seen as starting her fertility regulation period by postponing her age at marriage. Once married, she can adjust the delay before her first birth control. Then, she can decide whether or not to use a contraceptive, and finally she can select a specific contraception method. These four decisions, approximately arranged sequentially, may somewhat interact with the sequential stages of the woman’s lifecycle and involve distinct motivations: (1) enrolment in higher education; (2) participation in the labor market; (3) a given fertility objective; and (4) dealing with middle age and old age health problems.Using data from the 2001 Tunisian PAP-FAM survey data, we estimate econometric models that provide an approximate description of fertility regulation as an outcome of the above sequential decisions. Accordingly, the significant effects of our explanatory variables gradually arise and vanish across the models as the women proceeds in her fertility regulation process. Our findings suggest that family network and sociocultural environment greatly shape the household preference for children. Although strict causality inference is beyond the possibilities of a single cross-section, the elicited correlations point to suggestive explanations that call for additional collection efforts to better capture lifecycle decisions of family members and the interactions of the extended family across this lifecycle.