• Table of Contents
    • Abstract
    • Keywords
    • Article
      • Historical evidence
      • Theories of the demographic transition
        • The decline in infant and child mortality
        • The rise in the level of income per capita
        • The rise in the demand for human capital
        • The decline in child labour
        • The rise in life expectancy
        • Natural selection and the evolution of preference for offspring's quality
        • The decline in the gender gap
        • The old-age security hypothesis
      • Concluding remarks
    • See Also
    • Bibliography
    • How to cite this article

human capital, fertility and growth

Oded Galor
From The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, Second Edition, 2008
Edited by Steven N. Durlauf and Lawrence E. Blume
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Abstract

The worldwide demographic transition of the past 140 years has been identified as one of the prime forces in the transition from stagnation to growth. The unprecedented increase in population growth during the early stages of industrialization was ultimately reversed. The rise in the demand for human capital in the second phase of industrialization brought about a significant reduction in fertility rates and population growth in various regions of the world, enabling economies to convert a larger share of the fruits of factor accumulation and technological progress into growth of income per capita.
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Keywords

Agricultural Revolution; child labour; child quality; consumption smoothing; credit constraints; demographic transition; economic growth; educational attainment; fertility; gender gap; growth take-offs; human capital; Industrial Revolution; industrialization; infant mortality; life expectancy; mortality; old-age security hypothesis; population growth; public education; technological progress; wage differentials
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Article

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How to cite this article

Galor, Oded. "human capital, fertility and growth." The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Second Edition. Eds. Steven N. Durlauf and Lawrence E. Blume. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics Online. Palgrave Macmillan. 20 May 2013 <http://www.dictionaryofeconomics.com/article?id=pde2008_H000166> doi:10.1057/9780230226203.0755

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