Gender Norms and the Quantity–Quality Tradeoff: Evidence from Free Primary Education in Africa

This paper investigates the impact of free primary education (FPE) on parents’ fertility decisions in sub-Saharan Africa and how these effects depend on prevailing gender norms. Leveraging the staggered rollout of FPE across 17 countries and a within-ethnicity design, we find that the reform reduced completed fertility by 0.25 births per woman. Reduced fertility coincides with both improved child survival and school enrollment. Linking these data with ethnic-level cultural norms of male dominance, we show that these effects arise exclusively among groups with low male dominance. Consistent with fertility reductions increasing women’s autonomy, FPE also strengthens women’s outside options and intra-household bargaining power. In low male-dominance settings, this is reflected in higher divorce probabilities, lower acceptance of intimate partner violence, greater participation in household decisions, and increased media engagement — changes absent in high male-dominance cultures. A simple model embedding the quantity – quality tradeoff within a limited-commitment household bargaining framework, where gender norms determine women’s veto power over fertility, rationalizes these findings. Overall, the results underscore the central role of gender norms in shaping the effects of policy interventions on fertility and broader development outcomes.