Female education and fertility: examining the links.

This paper reviews an empirical research on the relationship between womens schooling and fertility. Based on the results of 59 studies the education-fertility relationship is categorized into four types. The first pattern is one in which fertility falls monotonically with increased years of schooling. In the second pattern a few years of schooling increases fertility initially but eventually fertility declines. In the third pattern the first few years of schooling have either no effect on or produce a slight rise in fertility. In the fourth pattern there is no relationship or fertility rises monotonically with education. Overall findings revealed that while primary education may affect fertility indirectly by mediating the effect of various factors secondary and higher education may influence fertility more directly by making people more able to make independent decisions based on an assessment of the likely costs and benefits of different actions. Multiple possible ways that education influences fertility are identified. These include employment/opportunity costs the nature of marriage familiarity with bureaucratic institutions and reference communities. Most studies of education and fertility see schooling as imbuing students not with unthinking adherence to what they are taught but with the ability to evaluate information and problems for themselves and in particular to break loose from traditional beliefs.