Air Pollution and Fertility Outcomes in Thailand

Pallavi Panda, State University of New York, Geneseo (SUNY)
Pasita Chaijaroen, Vidyasirimedhi Institute of Science and Technology

The intertwining dynamics of air pollution and fertility have emerged as crucial facets of public health and demographic studies (Frutos et al., 2015). This study evaluates the impact of air pollution exposure due to fires on fertility outcomes of women in Thailand. We construct a woman-age panel using the Thai 2019 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) and combine it with the remote sensing PM2.5, fire, and wind data. We isolate exogenous fluctuations in PM2.5 levels resulting from neighborhood area fires and wind direction to identify the causal effect of PM2.5 exposure on fertility. Our results show that an increase in the levels of PM2.5 pollution concentration by1µg/m3 causes a 7-10% drop in births next year with respect to our sample mean. The fertility decline is corroborated by an increase in short-term contraceptive use by women. We find stronger effects in the rural, low-education, and high-asset groups. We use Google Search data to show that increased access to information impacts the fertility decisions of young women. We also find evidence of the child quality-quantity tradeoff. With a first year of life exposure to PM2.5, we observe an increase in children’s protein consumption and preschool enrollment.

Keywords: Fertility, Population, Environment, and Climate Change, Population and Development, Children, Adolescents, and Youth

See paper.