Co-Integration Between Fertility and Human Development Indicators: Evidence from Pakistan

The main focus of this paper is to investigate the long run co-integration and short run dynamics between fertility decline and development indicators in Pakistan. Bound Testing approach (ARDL) and VECM are applied on annual time series data from 1971-2010 after finding mixed order of integration of the series through Ng -Perron unit root test. The results show that long run co-integration and short run dynamics exist between total fertility rate and Human Development Indicators (secondary school enrollment, life expectancy at birth and GDP per capita). Secondary school enrollment and life expectancy at birth prove the negative and significant impact on fertility, while GDP per capita indicated the positive but insignificant impact on fertility. The findings of study suggest that more resources should be invested in human capital formation through the provision of better education and health facilities to keep the fertility on declining.