Population and Environment: The Impact of Fertility on Land Use in an Agricultural Society

William G. Axinn, University of Michigan
Dirgha J. Ghimire, University of Michigan

We examine the population-environment relationship at the local community level by focusing on the impact of population changes on changes in land use. We develop a theoretical framework for the study of micro-level population-environment relationships that emphasizes the importance of local community context in shaping the reciprocal relationship between population and environment. We use longitudinal measures of land use changes, population dynamics, and community context from Nepal to provide empirical estimates of our theoretical model. This empirical investigation reveals that community context shapes land use changes over time in important ways. Furthermore, local birth rates have a large effect on land use changes that is not explained by changes in population size or structure. This intriguing finding is consistent with the hypothesis that fertility influences household consumption patterns which in turn impact land use changes.