Education and fertility

We examine the effects of community fertility levels on women’s education in South Africa, conceptualizing community fertility as a socio-cultural construct with bearing on individual outcomes. This paper contributes to the recent assertion that fertility decline may be a catalyst for women’s empowerment. We examine the effects of community fertility levels for older women on educational attainment for younger women as compared to younger men through two outcomes: 1) highest educational level attained for 25-29 year olds; and 2) grade for age for 14-18 year olds. We use data from the South African Community Survey (2007). We expect that lagged community fertility will be more strongly associated with women’s as compared to men’s educational attainment when controlling for indivudal, household and other socio-economic community-level effects. We do not find this to be the case for completed education, but do find this to be the case for grade for age models. We discuss the implications of our findings for our conceptualization of community fertility; as well as the implications for the intersections between gender, population and development in sub-Saharan Africa.

This paper evaluates fertility changes, controlling for education, in five Latin American countries that have completed or are in the later stages of demographic transition. This study aims to assess the chances that some countries in the region will reach low or lowest-low fertility levels in the near future. The authors performed two decomposition exercises. First, a retrospective decomposition exercise evaluated the impact of changes in women’s educational composition and in the age-specific fertility rates (ASFR) on the observed decline in total fertility rates (TFR) between 2000 and 2010. Next, a prospective decomposition projects future educational composition and evaluated the expected decline in TFR if the series of ASFR are kept constant at the 2010 level. These exercises were applied to Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, and Colombia using IPUMS microdata (Minnesota Population Center 2012).

During the last decades, childlessness has increased continuously across Europe and has been gaining increasing significance in the demographic literature and socio-political discussion. Education-specific studies show that childlessness is a particularly widespread phenomenon among female university graduates. Based on the Generations and Gender Survey, we study fertility intentions of University graduates, concentrating on 2,800 university degree holders aged 27 to 40 years in western Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, France and Norway. We study how main life domains are associated with the intention to have a child. Based on the concept of life course and inspired by the concept of rush hour of life we identify determinants of fertility intentions. We examine associations between employment and relationship on the one hand and plans for starting a family on the other. The study reveals remarkably lower fertility intentions as well as substantial gender differences in Germany and Austria. Childbearing plans are most pronounced among university graduates around the age of thirty. What is associated with fertility intentions is not only the degree of institutionalisation but also the duration of the relationship. Moreover, amount of working hours is related to childbearing plans.

This study examines the association between educational attainment and transition to second birth in Europe in comparative perspective. Previous research suggests that in several countries women’s educational attainment is positively related to second birth intensity, whereas other countries show non-positive or negative relationship. It is also known that analysis of this relationship is complicated due to confounding factors. We investigate the problem using data from the EU Statistics of Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), specifically the 2005 and 2011 surveys that cover 29 countries. Unlike most previous studies, our research focuses mainly on larger geographical units. We estimate separate discrete-time event history models for major regions and sub-regions of Europe; this analytical approach is complemented by multi-level modelling that provides additional insight to both overall pattern and country-specific deviations. With regard to women’s as well as partner’s educational attainment, several types of relationship to second births are distinguished. We find considerable diversity in both the direction and strength of the education gradient across regions in contemporary Europe.

This paper uses Peru DHS from 2008-2010 and birth cohorts (1970-1988) to estimate the effect of female education on teen fertility. It also estimates the role of education on two intermediate variables: age at marriage and current use of contraception. The analysis exploits an exogenous change in education produced by increased length of compulsory education in Peru from 6 to 11 years in 1994

The results show that a change in compulsory education is positively associated with formal schooling attained. The instrumental variable (IV) estimates show a statistically significant effect on reducing the probability of having a first birth between 18 and 19 years, which is post-compulsory education age, but not between 15 and 17 years. Results also indicate that better educated women are less likely to marry before 20 years of age and significantly more likely to use contraception. The IV estimates are larger than the (OLS) on the three outcomes studied suggesting the possibility of heterogeneous effects of the educational reform and measurement error on schooling. Results are relevant for policymakers aiming to reduce teenage fertility and increase educational attainment.