Kin and Fertility in Indonesia: How Do Different Measures of Kin Availability Affect the Results?

Kristin Snopkowski, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM)
Rebecca Sear, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM)

Evidence suggests that kin presence may be correlated with fertility, but variation in how kin ‘presence’ is measured makes firm conclusions hard to draw. Using data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey, we investigate how the measure of kin availability influences the effect of kin on fertility using four measures of kin ‘presence’: survivorship, co-residence, proximity and frequency of contact with woman’s parents and parents-in-law. We utilize the longitudinal aspect of the survey (data collected in 1993, 1997, 2000 and 2007) to examine how kin status in one wave predicts the likelihood of progression to another birth by the following wave. We also explore the role of financial transfers and childcare/household help as a possible mechanism by which kin support reproduction. We find that the survivorship of mothers is a significant predictor of progression to births, but closer proximity and more frequent contact are not the drivers of this effect.