IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp18771.html

Private Schooling and Fertility Decline in India

Author

Listed:
  • Fernández-Kranz, Daniel

    (IE University)

  • Trinh, Trong-Anh

    (Monash University)

Abstract

India reached below-replacement fertility (TFR = 2.0) despite low income, persistent traditional gender norms, and declining female labour force participation. We study how the expansion of a decentralized, fee-based education market reshaped fertility decisions by increasing households' exposure to the cost of child quality. Because sons are more likely than daughters to be enrolled in private schools, this cost channel interacts with son preference to generate gender-differentiated fertility stopping behavior. We test predicitons from a dynamic model of parity progression using survey data from NFHS (2015–21) merged with administrative district-level UDISE data on 37,251 women in 525 districts at the parity-2-to-3 margin. We find that households with only daughters are less responsive to local private-school prevalence than otherwise similar households with sons. This result is stable across subsamples, the exclusion of recent migrants, controls for modernization proxies, and controls for differential baseline-fertility trends. At the district level, private-school expansion is associated with lower parity progression, but this effect is sensitive to district-level confounding.

Suggested Citation

  • Fernández-Kranz, Daniel & Trinh, Trong-Anh, 2026. "Private Schooling and Fertility Decline in India," IZA Discussion Papers 18771, IZA Network @ LISER.
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18771
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp18771.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Athira Vinod, 2024. "Affirmative action and private education expenditure by disadvantaged groups: Evidence from India," Discussion Papers 2024-02, University of Nottingham, CREDIT.
    2. G. Gandhi Kingdon, 2002. "The Gender Gap in Educational Attainment in India: How Much Can Be Explained?," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(2), pages 25-53.
    3. Tahir Andrabi & Jishnu Das & Asim I. Khwaja & Selcuk Ozyurt & Niharika Singh, 2020. "Upping the Ante: The Equilibrium Effects of Unconditional Grants to Private Schools," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(10), pages 3315-3349, October.
    4. Gary S. Becker & Kevin M. Murphy & Robert Tamura, 1994. "Human Capital, Fertility, and Economic Growth," NBER Chapters, in: Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education, Third Edition, pages 323-350, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Rosenzweig, Mark R & Wolpin, Kenneth I, 1980. "Testing the Quantity-Quality Fertility Model: The Use of Twins as a Natural Experiment," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(1), pages 227-240, January.
    6. Chudgar, Amita & Quin, Elizabeth, 2012. "Relationship between private schooling and achievement: Results from rural and urban India," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 376-390.
    7. Adriana D. Kugler & Santosh Kumar, 2017. "Preference for Boys, Family Size, and Educational Attainment in India," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(3), pages 835-859, June.
    8. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
    9. Azam, Mehtabul & Kingdon, Geeta Gandhi, 2013. "Are Girls the Fairer Sex in India? Revisiting Intra-Household Allocation of Education Expenditure," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 143-164.
    10. Bheemeshwar Reddy A & Prakash Kumar Shukla & Mayank Agrawal & Shamsher Singh, 2026. "Caste, class, city and choice: Unravelling caste-based school segregation in urban India," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 63(9), pages 2077-2093, July.
    11. Kaivan Munshi & Mark Rosenzweig, 2006. "Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World: Caste, Gender, and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(4), pages 1225-1252, September.
    12. S Anukriti, 2018. "Financial Incentives and the Fertility-Sex Ratio Trade-Off," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 27-57, April.
    13. Mehtabul Azam & Geeta Kingdon & Kin Bing Wu, 2016. "Impact of private secondary schooling on cognitive skills: evidence from India," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(5), pages 465-480, September.
    14. Athira Vinod, 2024. "Affirmative action and private education expenditure by disadvantaged groups: evidence from India," NCAER Working Papers 176, National Council of Applied Economic Research.
    15. Singh, Abhijeet, 2015. "Private school effects in urban and rural India: Panel estimates at primary and secondary school ages," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 16-32.
    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. Nandi, Arindam & Sahoo, Soham & Haberland, Nicole & Ngô, Thoại D., 2023. "A glass ceiling at the playhouse? Gender gaps in public and private preschool enrollment in India," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    2. Kelly, Orla & Krishna, Aditi & Bhabha, Jacqueline, 2016. "Private schooling and gender justice: An empirical snapshot from Rajasthan, India's largest state," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 175-187.
    3. Goel, Deepti & Barooah, Bidisha, 2018. "Drivers of Student Performance: Evidence from Higher Secondary Public Schools in Delhi," IZA Discussion Papers 11670, IZA Network @ LISER.
    4. Mausam Kumar Garg & Poulomi Chowdhury & Illias Sheikh, 2024. "Determinants of school dropouts in India: a study through survival analysis approach," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 26(1), pages 26-48, April.
    5. Geeta Gandhi Kingdon, 2020. "The Private Schooling Phenomenon in India: A Review," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(10), pages 1795-1817, October.
    6. Chayanika Mitra & Indrani Sengupta & Pradeep Kumar Choudhury, 2022. "An analysis of school shifting patterns in India: what do recent data tell us?," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 24(2), pages 295-318, December.
    7. Doepke, M. & Tertilt, M., 2016. "Families in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1789-1891, Elsevier.
    8. Kumar, Deepak & Choudhury, Pradeep Kumar, 2021. "Do private schools really produce more learning than public schools in India? Accounting for student’s school absenteeism and the time spent on homework," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    9. Ian K. McDonough & Punarjit Roychowdhury & Gaurav Dhamija, 2021. "Measuring the Dynamics of the Achievement Gap Between Public and Private School Students During Early Life in India," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 42(1), pages 78-122, March.
    10. Karan Singhal & Upasak Das, 2019. "Revisiting the Role of Private Schooling on Children Learning Outcomes: Evidence from Rural India," South Asia Economic Journal, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, vol. 20(2), pages 274-302, September.
    11. Bagde, Surendrakumar & Epple, Dennis & Taylor, Lowell, 2022. "The emergence of private high schools in India: The impact of public-private competition on public school students," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 215(C).
    12. Peng, Fei & Anwar, Sajid & Kang, Lili, 2022. "Number of siblings, access to treated water and returns to education in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 526-538.
    13. Shuang Chen, 2020. "Parental Investment After the Birth of a Sibling: The Effect of Family Size in Low-Fertility China," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(6), pages 2085-2111, December.
    14. Sivadasan, Jagadeesh & Xu, Wenjian, 2021. "Missing women in India: Gender-specific effects of early-life rainfall shocks," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    15. Peter J. Stauvermann & Ronald R. Kumar, 2016. "Sustainability of A Pay-as-you-Go Pension System in A Small Open Economy with Ageing, Human Capital and Endogenous Fertility," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(1), pages 2-20, February.
    16. Grant Miller, 2005. "Contraception as Development? New Evidence from Family Planning in Colombia," CID Working Papers 9, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    17. Magalhães, Graziella & Turchick, David, 2022. "Growth and inequality under different hierarchical education regimes," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    18. 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.
    19. Jianxun Lyu, 2025. "Optimal sequential fertility choices under discriminatory preferences," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 38(1), pages 1-51, March.
    20. Isha Gupta, 2024. "Younger children and mothers’ labour supply in rural India: Evidence from fertility stopping behaviour," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 1-46, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • I25 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Economic Development
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation

    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:iza:izadps:dp18771. 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: Mark Fallak (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaalu.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.