Abstract：
Despite many discussions on the impacts of natural disasters on fertility outcomes, their implications for fertility preferences as a mechanism remain unexplored. This study proposes that natural disasters could promote fertility preferences by reinforcing traditional values. The empirical analysis relies on a post-tsunami longitudinal survey of individuals in the provinces of Aceh and North Sumatra in Indonesia frankenberg2020study. Out of the 28,376 survey respondents, our sample considers around 10,700 individuals aged 15 or more, whose responses are available for the variables used in the estimation. The results from individual-level cross-sectional regressions suggest that the ideal number of children increased with the extent of tsunami damage in that region. The increased fertility preference was more pronounced for people with greater religiosity and those who strengthened their family ties after the tsunami, supporting that the shift in fertility preference was intertwined with the rise of traditional values. For policymakers, our findings raise the need to consider the potentially lasting implications of shifts in cultural attitudes toward fertility beyond immediate post-disaster relief efforts. To address the limitations of our cross-sectional evidence, future research will need to investigate the dynamic relationship between fertility preferences and natural disasters using alternative data.
摘要：
尽管有许多关于自然灾害对生育结果的影响的讨论，它们对生育偏好作为一种机制的影响仍未被探索。这项研究提出，自然灾害可以通过加强传统价值观来促进生育偏好。实证分析依赖于海啸后对印度尼西亚frankenberg2020study亚齐省和北苏门答腊省的个人进行的纵向调查。在28,376名受访者中，我们的样本考虑了大约10700名15岁或以上的人，其响应可用于估计中使用的变量。个人水平横截面回归的结果表明，理想的儿童人数随该地区海啸破坏程度的增加而增加。对于宗教信仰较高的人和海啸后加强家庭联系的人，生育偏好的增加更为明显，支持生育率偏好的转变与传统价值观的兴起交织在一起。对于决策者来说，我们的研究结果提出，有必要考虑文化观念对生育率的转变的潜在持久影响，而不是立即进行灾后救援工作。为了解决我们横断面证据的局限性，未来的研究将需要使用替代数据调查生育偏好与自然灾害之间的动态关系。
