The Contribution of Education to Fertility Decline in Low- and Middle-income Countries

Bruno Schoumaker

UCLouvain

David Sánchez-Páez

Universidad de Valladolid

Background

  • Education is one of the most powerful determinants of demographic behaviour (Cleland 2002)

  • In most low- and middle-income countries, better-educated women have fewer children (Bongaarts 2003; Cleland 2002; Goujon, Lutz, and KC 2015; Bledsoe et al. 1999)

    • Later start of reproductive lives, lower ideal family size, and higher contraceptive prevalence.

  • Yet, the impact of increased education on fertility transitions is less clear

Educational composition and the fertility transition

  • “The rise in education levels is widely seen to be among the key causes of fertility decline during the demographic transition” (James, Skirbekk, and Van Bavel 2012)

  • “Schooling of the adult population may be a relatively modest force behind fertility decline […]”(Cleland 2002)

  • “[…] much of the overall decline in fertility is attributable to declines of fertility within each group rather than to an upward shift in the distribution of levels of schooling […]” (Bongaarts 2003)

Objective

  • To measure the contribution of educational changes to fertility declines (composition effect) in low- and middle-income countries since the 1980s

Data

Around 200 surveys in 51 countries

  • Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and Multiple Clusters Indicator Surveys (MICS)
  • Birth histories (women 15-49)
  • Three levels of education: No education, 1-6 years, 7+ years

  • Simple simulations: model patterns of fertility changes by level of education and patterns of changes in educational levels

Method

  • TFR by level of education and trends in education
  • Kitagawa decomposition method (Kitagawa 1955; Preston, Heuveline, and Guillot 2001)
  • Distinction between composition and rate effects
    • Composition effect (CE): upward shift in education
    • Rate effects (RE): within-group fertility declines

\[TFR^{t1}_T-TFR^{t2}_T=CE+RE_0+RE_1+RE_2+residual\]

Two model pattterns of changes in education

Three model patterns of fertility changes by educational level

Country-level fertility changes

Decomposition of fertility changes by educational level: absolute changes

Decomposition of fertility changes by educational level: percent changes

Fertility changes by level of education in 3 countries

Changes in education in 3 countries

Decomposition of fertility changes in 3 countries

The contribution of education to fertility declines: a global picture

Absolute contribution

The contribution of education to fertility declines: a global picture

Percent contribution

Conclusion (I)

  • No single model of fertility declines by level of education
  • Varying speeds of educational changes
  • As expected, the contribution of education to fertility changes varies greatly across countries
    • Minor contribution in some countries (e.g. Cambodia), major contribution in others (e.g. Haiti)

Conclusion (II)

  • Improved levels of education have contributed to the fertility decline in all the countries and almost all the time periods
  • Education is key factor, but not the major driver of fertility declines
  • On average, around 1 child per 40-50 years, and 25% of the declines attributable to composition effects
  • Further declines will depend on expanding education, but most of the declines will come from fertility changes within educational groups

The End

References

Bledsoe, Caroline, John B. Casterline, Jennifer Johnson-Kuhn, and John Haaga. 1999. “Female Education and Fertility: Examining the Links.” In, 23–48. Washington D.C.: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/6272.
Bongaarts, John. 2003. “Completing the Fertility Transition in the Developing World: The Role of Educational Differences and Fertility Preferences.” Population Studies 57 (3): 321–35. https://doi.org/10.1080/0032472032000137835.
Cleland, John. 2002. “Education and Future Fertility Trends, with Special Reference to Mid-Transitional Countries.” Population Bulletin of the United Nations. Completing the Fertility Transition, no. 48-49: 183–95. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237371021_Education_and_future_fertility_trends_with_special_reference_to_mid-transitional_countries.
Goujon, Anne, Wolfgang Lutz, and Samir KC. 2015. “Education Stalls and Subsequent Stalls in African Fertility: A Descriptive Overview.” Demographic Research 33 (47): 1281–96. https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2015.33.47.
James, K. S., Vegard Skirbekk, and Jan Van Bavel. 2012. “Education and the Global Fertility Transition - Foreword.” Vienna Yearbook of Population Research 10: 1–8. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41940994.
Kitagawa, Evelyn M. 1955. “Components of a Difference Between Two Rates.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 50 (272): 1168–94. https://doi.org/10.1080/01621459.1955.10501299.
Preston, Samuel, Patrick Heuveline, and Michel Guillot. 2001. Demography: Measuring and Modeling Population Processes. Oxford: Blackwell.