Social dimensions of fertility behavior and consumption patterns in the Anthropocene

Scott Barrett; Aisha Dasgupta; Partha Dasgupta; W Neil Adger; John Anderies; Jeroen van den Bergh; Caroline Bledsoe; John Bongaarts; Stephen Carpenter; F Stuart Chapin 3rd; Anne-Sophie Crépin; Gretchen Daily; Paul Ehrlich; Carl Folke; Nils Kautsky; Eric F Lambin; Simon A Levin; Karl-Göran Mäler; Rosamond Naylor; Karine Nyborg; Stephen Polasky; Marten Scheffer; Jason Shogren; Peter Søgaard Jørgensen; Brian Walker; James Wilen

doi:10.1073/pnas.1909857117

Social dimensions of fertility behavior and consumption patterns in the Anthropocene

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2020 Mar 24;117(12):6300-6307. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1909857117. Epub 2020 Mar 12.

Authors

Scott Barrett^{1

2}, Aisha Dasgupta³, Partha Dasgupta⁴, W Neil Adger⁵, John Anderies⁶, Jeroen van den Bergh^{7

8

9

10}, Caroline Bledsoe¹¹, John Bongaarts¹², Stephen Carpenter¹³, F Stuart Chapin 3rd¹⁴, Anne-Sophie Crépin¹⁵, Gretchen Daily¹⁶, Paul Ehrlich¹⁶, Carl Folke^{15

17}, Nils Kautsky¹⁸, Eric F Lambin^{19

20

21}, Simon A Levin²², Karl-Göran Mäler¹⁵, Rosamond Naylor²³, Karine Nyborg²⁴, Stephen Polasky²⁵, Marten Scheffer²⁶, Jason Shogren²⁷, Peter Søgaard Jørgensen^{17

28}, Brian Walker²⁹, James Wilen³⁰

Affiliations

¹ School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027.
² Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027.
³ Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations, New York, NY 10017.
⁴ Faculty of Economics, Cambridge University, CB3 9DD Cambridge, United Kingdom; [email protected].
⁵ Geography, College of Life and Environmental Science, University of Exeter, EX4 4RJ Exeter, United Kingdom.
⁶ School of Sustainability, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287.
⁷ Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra, Spain.
⁸ Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, 08010 Barcelona, Spain.
⁹ School of Business and Economics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
¹⁰ Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
¹¹ Anthropology Department, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208.
¹² Population Council, New York, NY 10017.
¹³ Center for Limnology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706.
¹⁴ Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK 99775.
¹⁵ Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, SE-105 05 Stockholm, Sweden.
¹⁶ Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305.
¹⁷ Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden.
¹⁸ Department of Systems Ecology, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden.
¹⁹ School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305.
²⁰ Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305.
²¹ George Lemaître Earth and Climate Research Centre, Earth and Life Institute, Université Catholique de Louvain, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
²² Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NY 08544.
²³ Earth System Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94304.
²⁴ Department of Economics, University of Oslo, 0317 Oslo, Norway.
²⁵ Department of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN 55108.
²⁶ Department of Environmental Sciences, Wageningen University, NL-6700 AA Wageningen, The Netherlands.
²⁷ Department of Economics, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071.
²⁸ Global Economic Dynamics and the Biosphere, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, 104 05 Stockholm, Sweden.
²⁹ Land and Water, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.
³⁰ Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Davis, CA 95616.

Abstract

We consider two aspects of the human enterprise that profoundly affect the global environment: population and consumption. We show that fertility and consumption behavior harbor a class of externalities that have not been much noted in the literature. Both are driven in part by attitudes and preferences that are not egoistic but socially embedded; that is, each household's decisions are influenced by the decisions made by others. In a famous paper, Garrett Hardin [G. Hardin, Science 162, 1243-1248 (1968)] drew attention to overpopulation and concluded that the solution lay in people "abandoning the freedom to breed." That human attitudes and practices are socially embedded suggests that it is possible for people to reduce their fertility rates and consumption demands without experiencing a loss in wellbeing. We focus on fertility in sub-Saharan Africa and consumption in the rich world and argue that bottom-up social mechanisms rather than top-down government interventions are better placed to bring about those ecologically desirable changes.

Keywords: consumption; fertility; socially embedded preferences.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Africa South of the Sahara
Conservation of Natural Resources*
Consumer Behavior*
Developed Countries
Fertility
Humans
Income
Population Growth
Reproductive Behavior*
Social Change*
Social Conformity
Sustainable Development
Technology