Relation between economic development and fertility in Romania

The economic, social and the demographic evolution of Romania is part of a larger picture that includes a number of Eastern European countries of the former communist bloc. Typical for them is not only economic and social transition process caused by the fall of communism, but also a process of demographic transition that is characterized by a negative natural growth, decreased fertility, demographic ageing. Studies have tried to highlight different explanatory theories for this decline, and the nature of the relationship between evolution of economic development and demographic evolution.In this study we intend to analyze causality relationship between economic growth and fertility in the last 22 years in Romania. The empirical study aims to study the existence of a long run relationship between the two phenomena, and using the Granger method to highlight the type of causality between economic growth and fertility. In addition, if we add the unemployment rate, we want to analyze the existence of cointegration relationships for all three variables, to test the hypothesis that the economic and social transition has an impact on fertility. The empirical results show a relationship between fertility and economic output and between unemployment and fertility also, and support the hypothesis of demographic developments in Romania in accord with the theory of demographic transition, which however takes into account the socio-economic context of a country in the transition process