More Schooling, More Children: Compulsory Schooling Reforms and Fertility in Europe

Margherita Fort, Nicole Schneeweis and Rudolf Winter-Ebmer

No 6015, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

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.

Keywords: education; instrumental variables; fertility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I2 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 43 pages
Date: 2011-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-eur and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (50)

Published - substantially revised version published as 'Is Education Always Reducing Fertility? Evidence from Compulsory Schooling Reforms' in: Economic Journal, 2016, 126 (595), 1823 - 1855

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Related works:
Working Paper: More Schooling, More Children: Compulsory Schooling Reforms and Fertility in Europe (2011)
Working Paper: More Schooling, More Children: Compulsory Schooling Reforms and Fertility in Europe (2011)
Working Paper: More Schooling, More Children: Compulsory Schooling Reforms and Fertility in Europe (2011)
Working Paper: More Schooling, More Children: Compulsory Schooling Reforms and Fertility in Europe (2011)
Working Paper: More Schooling, More Children: Compulsory Schooling Reforms and Fertility in Europe (2011)
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