Changes in Fertility Trends and Women's Fertility Desires in the Wake of the Homicide Surge in Mexico.

Abstract

Since 2006, Mexico has experienced a surge in homicides due to national policies and international influences on drug trafficking activities. Although the effects of the so-called "Drug War" have been extensively studied in demography and social science research, whether and how the increase in homicides has affected fertility is poorly understood. This study provides a comprehensive account of the association between homicides and changes in fertility rates and desires in Mexico. Using population-level administrative data on births, deaths, and homicides for 2443 municipalities, we apply fixed-effects models and a staggered difference-in-differences estimator to study the effect of homicidal violence on total fertility rate (TFR), crude birth rate (CBR), and birth counts across Mexican municipalities between 2000 and 2020. Then, using random-intercept and fixed-effects models, we analyze the association between changes in homicide rates and fertility desires for 6341 women from the Mexican Family Life Survey (2002-2012). Our findings show very small negative associations, and no overall effect of homicides on fertility for the period considered. Similarly, we find no association between municipality-level homicide rates and fertility desires, consistently by education, age, and parity. Our results show remarkable continuity in the Mexican fertility decline despite the rapid escalation of violence.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11113-026-09999-x.