The Impact of Unemployment on Fertility in Romania

Demographical issues have played an important role in human development. The unemployment rate in Romania has been very high in the last two decades. During the same period, the total fertility rate (TFR) dropped dramatically reaching the lowest-low level, defined by Kohler in 2002 as the level for which TFR<1.3. The TFR indicates the average number of living new born per woman in her fertile life. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the influence of unemployment rate in the fertility changes in Romania in the last 20 years. Our results suggest that unemployment have a very strong negative effect on childbearing.