This article was first published by the AXA Foundation. Read the original article here.

As part of our commitment to strengthening social resilience and solidarity through science, the AXA Foundation for Human Progress is supporting cutting-edge postdoctoral research under the theme “Rethinking the Social Contract: Demographic Change, Social Protection, and Solidarity.”

The AXA initiative "Generating Practical Solutions for a Better Society" aims to deliver concrete insights on how the social contract must evolve to support a resilient, fair, and sustainable society. It promotes interdisciplinary, solution-driven research capable of providing actionable recommendations for policymakers, institutions, and communities.

CEPAR researcher Dr Trang Le's project "Fertility, Education, and Evolving Social Contract in Developing Countries" was selected by the AXA Research Fund to examine how rapid demographic change in emerging economies is transforming the “old deal” between generations, and what that implies for social protection and public policy.

Focusing on Indonesia, with extensions to Vietnam and Thailand, Dr Le develops a structural life‑cycle model in which children are treated as informal old‑age insurance, and households choose fertility and education under income risk, borrowing constraints, informality and changing expectations of support. Using rich panel data (IFLS and comparable surveys), the project quantifies how weakening norms of filial support affect decisions about family size and human capital investment, and simulates how social pensions, education subsidies and other policies could offset rising vulnerability, inequality and immobility.