Fertility and Education. What Do We Really Know?

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.

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