The Impact of Mothers Education on Fertility in Ghana

Many African countries, including Ghana, have come to accept the increasing role of education in the development of a healthy population of any nation. Education has the tendency of influencing the fertility of a person. However fertility trends in Africa still remain high. This study is to investigate the relationship between mother’s education and fertility. The Poisson model was used and the GMM was applied to solve the problem of endogeneity in the main explanatory variable of this study. The study utilized data from the Ghana Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS4). The use of the Poisson model was based on the count and discrete nature of the main outcome variable of this study which is number of children. The Instrumental Variable approach (IV) was used since years of education was an endogenous variable. The study showed that the average number of children among the respondents was found to be 3.8. Years of education was an average of 7.6. The IV estimates had a higher magnitude as compared to the Poisson though with same direction, it reveals one more year of education will reduce the expected number of children by 0.25. Therefore we conclude by this study that education is inversely associated with fertility.