Individual-Level Links Between Education and Fertility Limitation
Parent’s schooling
Educated women: gain new opportunities for status attainment, education = increased opportunity costs of childbearing for women, reduce their desire for children
Structural/demand theories
Ideational theories
5 related mechanisms that link parents’ education to childbearing behaviour
Contraception
Western family values → small families
Weakened historical family values
Increased consumption aspirations
Increased contraceptive use
Children’s schooling
Wealth flow theory - Caldwell
Children’s schooling: increased costs of children
Quantity-quality trade-off
Limiting quantity of children to increase the educational attainment (quality) of children
Mechanisms:
New expenses
Less influence from parents → children = less value to parents
Increased children independence
Community-Level Links Between Education and Fertility Limitation