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Title: The Effect of Education on Fertility: Evidence From Compulsory Schooling Laws

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2004

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Abstract: Social scientists have long observed a strong negative relationship between education andfertility. Since the choice of schooling is not random, however, the question of whetherthis correlation is causal remains open. In this paper, I use 1950-1990 US Census data,along with information on compulsory attendance and child labor laws that affectedwomens schooling choices in their teenage years, to estimate the effect of education ontotal completed fertility accounting for the endogeneity of schooling. Instrumentalvariable estimates using changes in state compulsory schooling laws as a source ofexogenous variation in education indicate that women with 3-4 additional years ofschooling have on average one less child than they would have otherwise. Furtheranalysis suggests that heterogeneity across individuals and, to a lesser extent, nonlinearityin the fertility return to schooling, explain an important part of the differencebetween IV and OLS estimates. Moreover, this fertility-reducing effect of schooling doesnot appear to be mediated by a reduction in marriage rates, while there is evidence thateducation does increase the probability that a woman will reach the end of her fertilelifetime without children. These results are robust to a number of specification checks,and imply that rising levels of education can account for a sizable fraction of the declinein fertility rates for several Western countries in the second half of the 20th century.

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Authors: Leon, Alexis

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Education, Fertility and Mortality

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