Economic Crisis and Ethnic Differences in Desired Fertility: Russian and Tartar Preferences in the Late 1990s

Kristen Adkins, University of Texas at Austin

This paper investigates the “economic crisis argument” explanation of desired fertility trends in Russian following the economic crisis of the late 1990s. Using two waves of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, this research evaluates social demographic and economic variables impact on the desire of women to have a/another child using structural equation modeling. This analysis accesses desired fertility change in a natural pre-test/post-test scenario; where the 1996 data are reflective of desired fertility before the crisis and 1998 data are reflective of desired fertility during the crisis. The findings of this study confirm previous research which concluded that while aggregate level fertility rates may wax and wane with economic changes, individual level desired fertility has a tenuous if not non-existent relationship with economic uncertainty in the Russian Federation. In addition, there do not seem to be pronounced ethnic differentials in regard to economic uncertainty and desired fertility as expected.