The link between climate change, food security and fertility: The case of Bangladesh

RESEARCH ARTICLE The link between climate change, food security and fertility: The case of Bangladesh Mengni Chen1, Shah Md Atiqul HaqID2,3,4*, Khandaker Jafor Ahmed5, A. H. M. Belayeth Hussain4,6¤, Mufti Nadimul Quamar Ahmed7 1 Department of Sociology, Copenhagen University, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2 Centre for Demographic Research, Universite´ Catholique de Louvain, Louvain, Belgium, 3 National Fund for Scientific Research, Louvain, Belgium, 4 Department of Sociology, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet, Bangladesh, 5 Department of Geography, Environment and Population, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia, 6 School of Social Sciences, University Sains Malasia (USM), Penang, Malaysia, 7 Department of Applied Sociology and Social Work, North East University Bangladesh, Sylhet, Bangladesh ¤ Current address: University Sains Malaysia (USM), Penang, Malaysia * shahatiq1@yahoo.com, shahatiq-soc@sust.edu Abstract Climate change is likely to worsen the food security situation through its impact on food pro- duction, which may indirectly affect fertility behaviour. This study examines the direct and indirect effects of climate change (e.g., temperature and precipitation) via the production of major crops, as well as their short- and long-term effects on the total fertility rate (TFR) in Bangladesh. We used structural equation modelling (SEM) to perform path analysis and dis- tinguish the direct influence of climate change on fertility and its indirect influence on fertility

through food security. We also applied the error correction model (ECM) to analyze the time-series data on temperature and precipitation, crop production and fertility rate of Ban- gladesh from 1966 to 2015. The results show that maximum temperature has a direct effect and indirect negative effect–via crop production–on TFR, while crop production has a direct positive effect and indirect negative effect–via infant mortality–on TFR. In the short term, TFR responds negatively to the maximum temperature but positively in the long term. The effect of rainfall on TFR is found to be direct, positive, but mainly short-term. Although indi- cators of economic development play an important part in the fertility decline in Bangladesh, some climate change parameters and crop production are non-negligible factors. Introduction Climate change is a major problem today and poses a threat to the entire world. The Earth’s atmosphere’s average temperature has increased by about 0.15˚C to 0.2˚C over the past 100 years [1]. By the end of this century, global temperatures are expected to increase by 0.3˚C to 4.8˚C [2]. Precipitation patterns have also changed globally and locally [3]. There are positive and negative trends in precipitation worldwide. The trend is increasing in tropical seas and decreasing in some areas at mean altitudes [4]. However, seasonal variations in precipitation– particularly in much of the arid tropics–show the increasing uncertainty in intensity, timing, PLOS ONE PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258196 October 21, 2021 1 / 18 a1111111111 a1111111111

a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 OPEN ACCESS Citation: Chen M, Atiqul Haq SM, Ahmed KJ, Hussain AHMB, Ahmed MNQ (2021) The link between climate change, food security and fertility: The case of Bangladesh. PLoS ONE 16(10): e0258196. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0258196 Editor: Md Nazirul Islam Sarker, Neijiang Normal University, CHINA Received: December 31, 2020 Accepted: September 21, 2021 Published: October 21, 2021 Copyright: © 2021 Chen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: We included climate change, production of major crops (rice, wheat, and pulses), and fertility data for Bangladesh during 1966-2015. Climate data were collected from Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) (http://www.bmd.gov.bd). Annual data on rice, wheat, and legume production were also collected from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) (http:// www.fao.org/home/en/) as part of the study. Data on infant mortality and total fertility rate (TFR) were obtained from the United Nations Population