Fertility and Education. What Do We Really Know?

TLDR

Evidence shows education can both increase and decrease individual fertility, and further research is needed. The study reviews the education–fertility relationship and develops a model linking intervening variables to fertility. The authors review current research and construct a model relating intervening variables to fertility. Education reduces fertility more for women and in urban areas, but in low‑literacy countries it can increase fertility through health improvements, while in high‑literacy societies it lowers child demand and facilitates efficient family planning, statistical tables and figures illustrate these patterns.

Abstract

Current research on the relationship between education and fertility is reviewed, and a model relating intervening variables to fertility is developed. The evidence indicates that education may increase or decrease individual fertility. The decrease is greater for the education of women than of men and is greater in urban than in rural areas. However, education is more likely to increase fertility in countries with the lowest level of female literacy. Probably, this increase occurs as a result of improved health, better nutrition, and the abandonment of traditional patterns of lactation and postpartum abstinence, education increases the ability to have live births. In societies with higher average levels of female literacy, education lowers the demand for children by altering perceptions of costs and benefits. In addition, once the biological supply of children exceeds the demand for them, high levels of education enable couples to limit their fertility more efficiently through access to contraceptive knowledge and improved ability to communicate with each other. Several issues require further research. Statistical tables and figues are provided.