IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ihs/ihsesp/281.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

More Schooling, More Children

Author

Listed:
  • Fort, Margherita

    (Department of Economics, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy)

  • Schneeweis, Nicole

    (Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria)

  • Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf

    (Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University, Linz, and Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna, Austria)

Abstract

We study the relationship between education and fertility, exploiting compulsory schooling reforms in Europe as source of exogenous variation in education. Using data from 8 European countries, we assess the causal effect of education on the number of biological kids and the incidence of childlessness. We find that more education causes a substantial decrease in childlessness and an increase in the average number of children per woman. Our findings are robust to a number of falsification checks and we can provide complementary empirical evidence on the mechanisms leading to these surprising results.

Suggested Citation

  • Fort, Margherita & Schneeweis, Nicole & Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf, 2011. "More Schooling, More Children," Economics Series 281, Institute for Advanced Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:ihs:ihsesp:281
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://irihs.ihs.ac.at/id/eprint/2107
    File Function: First version, 2011
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rajeev Dehejia & Adriana Lleras-Muney, 2004. "Booms, Busts, and Babies' Health," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(3), pages 1091-1130.
    2. Brunello, Giorgio & Fabbri, Daniele & Fort, Margherita, 2009. "Years of Schooling, Human Capital and the Body Mass Index of European Females," IZA Discussion Papers 4667, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Giorgio Brunello & Margherita Fort & Guglielmo Weber, 2009. "Changes in Compulsory Schooling, Education and the Distribution of Wages in Europe," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(536), pages 516-539, March.
    4. Justin McCrary & Heather Royer, 2011. "The Effect of Female Education on Fertility and Infant Health: Evidence from School Entry Policies Using Exact Date of Birth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 158-195, February.
    5. Osili, Una Okonkwo & Long, Bridget Terry, 2008. "Does female schooling reduce fertility? Evidence from Nigeria," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 57-75, August.
    6. Karsten Hank, 2010. "Childbearing History, Later Life Health, and Mortality in Germany," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 305, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    7. Meltem Dayioglu & Murat G. Kirdar & Ismet Koc, 2009. "The Impact of Schooling on The Timing of Marriage and Fertility: Evidence from A Change in Compulsory Schooling Law," Working Papers 470, Economic Research Forum, revised Mar 2009.
    8. repec:pri:cheawb:adriana_booms.pdf is not listed on IDEAS
    9. SandraE. Black & PaulJ. Devereux & KjellG. Salvanes, 2008. "Staying in the Classroom and out of the maternity ward? The effect of compulsory schooling laws on teenage births," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(530), pages 1025-1054, July.
    10. Jere R. Behrman & Mark R. Rosenzweig, 2002. "Does Increasing Women's Schooling Raise the Schooling of the Next Generation?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 323-334, March.
    11. Garrouste, Christelle, 2010. "100 years of educational reforms in Europe: a contextual database," MPRA Paper 31853, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Pedro Mira & Namkee Ahn, 2002. "A note on the changing relationship between fertility and female employment rates in developed countries," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 15(4), pages 667-682.
    13. Janet Currie & Enrico Moretti, 2003. "Mother's Education and the Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital: Evidence from College Openings," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(4), pages 1495-1532.
    14. Karin Monstad & Carol Propper & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2008. "Education and Fertility: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 110(4), pages 827-852, December.
    15. Victor Lavy & Alexander Zablotsky, 2011. "Mother's Schooling and Fertility under Low Female Labor Force Participation: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," NBER Working Papers 16856, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Brunello, Giorgio & Fort, Margherita & Schneeweis, Nicole & Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf, 2011. "The Causal Effect of Education on Health," Economics Series 280, Institute for Advanced Studies.
    17. Alicia Adsera, 2005. "Vanishing Children: From High Unemployment to Low Fertility in Developed Countries," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 189-193, May.
    18. Lucia Breierova & Esther Duflo, 2003. "The Impact of Education on Fertility and Child Mortality: Do Fathers Really Matter Less Than Mothers?," OECD Development Centre Working Papers 217, OECD Publishing.
    19. Lars Lefgren & Frank McIntyre, 2006. "The Relationship between Women's Education and Marriage Outcomes," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(4), pages 787-830, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. M. Fort & N. Schneeweis & R. Winter-Ebmer, 2011. "More Schooling, More Children: Compulsory Schooling Reforms and Fertility in Europe," Working Papers wp787, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    2. Margherita Fort & Nicole Schneeweis & Rudolf Winter-Ebmer, 2014. "More Schooling, More Children? Compulsory Schooling and Fertility in Europe," CESifo Working Paper Series 5068, CESifo.
    3. Miron Tequame & Nyasha Tirivayi, 2015. "Higher education and fertility: Evidence from a natural experiment in Ethiopia," CINCH Working Paper Series 1509, Universitaet Duisburg-Essen, Competent in Competition and Health, revised Aug 2015.
    4. Murat G. Kırdar & Meltem Dayıoğlu & İsmet Koç, 2018. "The Effects of Compulsory-Schooling Laws on Teenage Marriage and Births in Turkey," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(4), pages 640-668.
    5. Cygan-Rehm, Kamila & Maeder, Miriam, 2013. "The effect of education on fertility: Evidence from a compulsory schooling reform," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 35-48.
    6. James, Jonathan & Vujić, Sunčica, 2019. "From high school to the high chair: Education and fertility timing," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 1-24.
    7. Bellés-Obrero, Cristina & Cabrales, Antonio & Jiménez-Martín, Sergi & Vall-Castelló, Judit, 2023. "Women’s education, fertility and children’ health during a gender equalization process: Evidence from a child labor reform in Spain," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    8. Chen, Jiwei & Guo, Jiangying, 2022. "The effect of female education on fertility: Evidence from China’s compulsory schooling reform," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    9. Youjin Hahn & Kanti Nuzhat & Hee-Seung Yang, 2018. "The effect of female education on marital matches and child health in Bangladesh," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 31(3), pages 915-936, July.
    10. Keats, Anthony, 2018. "Women's schooling, fertility, and child health outcomes: Evidence from Uganda's free primary education program," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 142-159.
    11. Fatma Romeh M. Ali & Shiferaw Gurmu, 2018. "The impact of female education on fertility: a natural experiment from Egypt," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 681-712, September.
    12. Jungho Kim, 2023. "Female education and its impact on fertility," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 228-228, May.
    13. Shuang Chen, 2022. "The Positive Effect of Women’s Education on Fertility in Low-Fertility China," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 38(1), pages 125-161, March.
    14. Dinçer, Mehmet Alper & Kaushal, Neeraj & Grossman, Michael, 2014. "Women’s Education: Harbinger of Another Spring? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Turkey," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 243-258.
    15. Chicoine, Luke, 2012. "Education and Fertility: Evidence from a Policy Change in Kenya," IZA Discussion Papers 6778, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Kountouris, Yiannis, 2020. "Higher education and fertility: Evidence from reforms in Greece," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    17. Lavy, Victor & Zablotsky, Alexander, 2015. "Women's schooling and fertility under low female labor force participation: Evidence from mobility restrictions in Israel," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 105-121.
    18. Anna Sibilla Francesca DE PAOLI, 2010. "The effect of schooling on fertility, labor market participation and children’s outcomes, evidence from Ecuador," Departmental Working Papers 2010-30, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    19. Güneş Pınar Mine, 2016. "The Impact of Female Education on Teenage Fertility: Evidence from Turkey," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 16(1), pages 259-288, January.
    20. DeCicca, Philip & Krashinsky, Harry, 2020. "Does education reduce teen fertility? Evidence from compulsory schooling laws," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Instrumental variables; education; fertility;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ihs:ihsesp:281. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Doris Szoncsitz (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deihsat.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.