Determinants of Fertility During the Fertility Transition in Estonia: A Spatial Analysis

Abstract

The Princeton European Fertility Project famously studied the determinants of fertility transition using geographical data. The project, however, received criticism for using highlevel spatial units that hide much of the variation within. Additionally, although the project underlined the importance of neighbourhood influence through linguistic and cultural similarities, the spatial aspects were not comprehensively studied. This article investigates fertility determinants during the second half of the fertility transition in Estonia, a country with one of the earliest transitions in Europe. We study the completed cohort fertility of married women born between 1875 1894 in Estonia at the lowest-level of municipalities. Given the spatial nature of the data, spatial Durbin models are used in addition to the OLS model. The results show that demographic, cultural, educational, economic and spatial influences were all important in determining the level of fertility during the transition.