Estudio de la causalidad entre fecundidad y pobreza en el Ecuador a partir del análisis de datos provinciales, años 2006 y 2014

Abstract

The principal goal of the current research is to determine the existence of a causal relationship between Fertility and Poverty in Ecuador from the analysis of provincial data for 2006 and 2014. We applied two econometric models to assess the relationship of these variables, and these are: Poisson Regression Model to assess the impact of poverty on fertility and; Probit Regression Model to analyze the impact that fertility on poverty has. The mentioned models were estimated for a total of 13.580 households in2006 and 28.399 in 2014, these data were obtained from the fourth and fifth version of Living Conditions Survey of Ecuador, made by INEC. Was found a strong positive relationship between the mentioned variables in both years of study; however, due to the lack of information and the structuring of the used database, we could not accurately determine the existence of a causal relationship between the two variables. Although the causality’s direction was not determined, is important to mention that the influence that poverty performs on fertility levels in Ecuador is higher than the impact that fertility on poverty has; in other words, higher poverty levels cause a higher number of children in the households.