Search

In communities highly dependent on rainfed agriculture for their livelihoods, the common oc-currence of climatic shocks such as droughts can lower the opportunity cost of having children, and raise fertility. Using longitudinal household data from Madagascar, we estimate the causal effect of drought occurrences on fertility, and explore the nature of potential mechanisms driving this effect. We exploit exogenous within-district year-to-year variation in rainfall deficits, and find that droughts occurring during the agricultural season significantly increase the number of children born to women living in agrarian communities. This effect is long lasting, as it is not reversed within four years following the drought occurrence. Analyzing the mechanism, we find that droughts have no effect on common underlying factors of high fertility such as marriage timing and child mortality. Furthermore, droughts have no significant effect on fertility if they occur during the non-agricultural season or in non-agrarian communities, and their positive effect in agrarian communities is mitigated by irrigation. These findings provide evidence that a low opportunity cost of having children is the main channel driving the fertility effect of drought in agrarian communities.

Women's disadvantages on the labour market leave them financially vulnerable when divorced. The number of elderly divorced women is growing, but their pension prospects are poor. The paper outlines current British arrangements for pensions and their treatment in divorce, and explains the case for new law on pension splitting. Men's and women's lifetime earnings are simulated on the basis of econometric estimates, as are their pension entitlements under SERPS, Money Purchase and Final Salary Schemes. Pension splitting after divorce is also simulated. It does not invariably guarantee pension adequacy, nor necessarily compensate for the pension mothers forego to rear children. Better Basic Pension would do better.