The Post-2008 Pronatalist Rhetoric in Türkiye: There is No Robust Causal Effect on Actual Fertility!

Authors : M Aykut Attar

Pages : 5-26

View : 32 | Download : 96

Publication Date : 2024-12-30

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :On March 8, 2008, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was the prime minister at the time, said that women in Türkiye should have at least three children. Since then, a pronatalist rhetoric has been sustained in Türkiye. Today, there is a large multidisciplinary social science literature on the post-2008 pronatalist rhetoric, but no study has investigated the causal effects of the rhetoric on actual fertility. To fill this gap in the literature, this paper investigates whether the post-2008 pronatalism in Türkiye did create any robust causal effect on actual fertility (the period Total Fertility Rate). The paper uses the synthetic control method to identify the causal effect associated with the post-2008 pronatalism. An inspection of population policies across the globe identifies 26 countries as potential donors for the synthetic Türkiye, and the predictor variables for actual fertility are GDP per capita, infant mortality rate, population density, and the share of young population (15 to 24 ages). Using the state-of-the-art methodological principles of the synthetic control method, the paper demonstrates that the post-2008 pronatalist rhetoric in Türkiye did not create any robust causal effect on actual fertility. From the viewpoint of optimal population policy, this paper underlines that the rhetoric only, i.e., without generous programs creating sufficiently strong incentives, would not even boost period fertility outcomes.
Keywords : doğum-yanlılığı, nüfus politikası, nedensel çıkarsama, sentetik kontrol