The remarkable features of demographic development in Korea in recent years have been rapid urbanization and declining fertility rate. The objective of this study is to examine economic factors which influence rural - urban migration and how the migration influences the fertility behavior.
The basic premise of this study is that fertility is a decision of each individual to maximize some utility function in which children and other goods appear as arguments subject to resource constraints.
The results of tuis study confirm the theory of fertility behavior that the determinants of fertility are migration, education level, income, investment level in health, etc.
The study also confirms that the economic factors which influence the migration are education level, income, investment level in health, etc.
Even when various factors hypothesized to affect fertility are held constant, migration status exerts a strong influence on the fertility rate.
Education level, income, investment level in health etc, all have varying degrees of association with fertility and migration status.
What is significant is the finding that migration status, although it is associated with all these variables, exerts a strong influence on fertility, not because it is associated with these variables, but independently or itself.
