Human Capital, Population Growth and Economic Development: Beyond Correlations
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Empirical evidence on three assertions commonly-made by population
policy advocates about the relationships among population growth, human
capital formation and economic development is discussed and evaluated in
the light of economic-biological models of household behavior and of its
relevance to population policy. The three assertions are that (a)
population growth and human capital investments jointly reflect and respond
to changes in the economic environment, (b) larger families directly impede
human capital formation, and (c) the inability of couples to control
fertility is an important determinant of investment in human capital. The
evidence suggests that widely-observed correlations among population growth,
human capital and economic variables, which admit to alternative
interpretations, are far stronger than are the estimates from studies whose
objective is to quantify the causal mechanisms underlying the three
assertions; however, there is empirical support for each.