RELIGION AND FERTILITY IN EAST ASIA: EVIDENCE FROM THE EAST ASIAN SOCIAL SURVEY

摘要

This article analyses the effect of religious affiliation on fertility in Japan, Korea and the Republic of China (Taiwan). It adds to the sparse empirical evidence on the effects of religious affiliation on fertility in East Asia, for both Christian and other religions. It uses an identity-economic model and analyses prescriptions among the different religions to derive testable hypotheses. In the empirical section, the East Asian Social Survey and a generalized Poisson model are used to estimate the effects of different religions on fertility. In line with theoretical predictions, the empirical results suggest that a positive effect of Catholicism on fertility is still present in East Asia. In line with the sparse previous empirical evidence on Buddhism, it seems to have no effect on fertility.