Department of Economics, University of Oregon, 1285 University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, 97403, USA,
Demography. 2014 Aug;51(4):1477-500. doi: 10.1007/s13524-014-0316-7.
Determining whether power outages have significant fertility effects is an important policy question in developing countries, where blackouts are common and modern forms of family planning are scarce. Using birth records from Zanzibar, this study shows that a month-long blackout in 2008 caused a significant increase in the number of births 8 to 10 months later. The increase was similar across villages that had electricity, regardless of the level of electrification; villages with no electricity connections saw no changes in birth numbers. The large fertility increase in communities with very low levels of electricity suggests that the outage affected the fertility of households not connected to the grid through some spillover effect. Whether the baby boom is likely to translate to a permanent increase in the population remains unclear, but this article highlights an important hidden consequence of power instability in developing countries. It also suggests that electricity imposes significant externality effects on rural populations that have little exposure to it.
确定停电是否对发展中国家的生育率有重大影响是一个重要的政策问题，因为在这些国家，停电很常见，而现代形式的计划生育却很少。本研究利用桑给巴尔的出生记录表明，2008 年长达一个月的停电导致 8 到 10 个月后出生人数显著增加。无论电气化程度如何，有电的村庄之间的增幅相似；没有电力连接的村庄出生人数没有变化。在电力供应极低的社区中，生育率大幅增加表明停电通过某种溢出效应影响了未接入电网的家庭的生育能力。婴儿潮是否有可能转化为人口的永久性增长尚不清楚，但本文强调了发展中国家电力不稳定的一个重要隐藏后果。它还表明，电力对农村人口造成了重大的外部性影响，而这些农村人口很少接触电力。
