Introduction

The economic consequences of population growth have been a recurrent theme in development literature throughout history. However, attempts to analyse the microeconomic explanations for fertility trends is a more recent occurrence. Studies of population growth, in particular on fertility, have consistently pointed to female education as a major influence on differences in fertility rates. The purpose of this essay is to review this complex inverse relationship using microeconomic frameworks for fertility analysis. The investigation focuses on the role of female education in influencing the three key determinants of fertility: demand for children, supply of children, and the cost of fertility control measures.

Theories

Much of the theoretical work on the relationship between women’s education and fertility stems from Becker’s model of the demand for children (Becker, 1960). His framework analyses the demand for children in microeconomic terms by viewing children as normal consumption goods, through the application of consumer behaviour theory. Becker’s (1960) contribution opened up a multitude of economic research into fertility, resulting in many adaptations to his framework. Easterlin (1975) expands on Becker’s theory, incorporating it into his own economic framework for fertility analysis. He identifies the three determinants of fertility as: demand for children, potential output of children, and the costs, broadly speaking, of fertility regulation. Demand refers to the desired number of children if fertility control was free, and the potential output of children refers to the supply of surviving children if fertility is not deliberately controlled. The combination of demand and supply of children determines the motivation for the third determinant of fertility: the costs of fertility regulation (Easterlin, 1975). These three areas form the structure of this analysis into the relationship between female education and fertility.

Human capital theory suggests that there are substantial microeconomic and macroeconomic returns to education (Michaelowa, 2000). In the context of female education, investment in human capital results in the macroeconomic effect of reducing population growth through different microeconomic channels, such as women’s improved earnings (Michaelowa, 2000). This has been evident over time in the developed world as studies have shown that the accumulation of human capital, amongst other factors, contributed to the third stage of the demographic transition, i.e. low birth rates and low death rates. The coincidence of the rise in education and the onset of the demographic transition in developed countries has been noted in many studies (Clark, 2005; Goldin, 2006; Galor, 2005) However, the pace of the fertility transition has been slower in developing countries. This analysis aims to show how increasing female educational attainment in developing countries will aid the transition to the third stage of the demographic transition, as seen in the industrialised world.

Demand for children

Women’s human capital accumulation affects demand for children through the following routes: smaller desired family size, increased opportunity cost, and a decline in child mortality. Family-size preferences play a crucial role in determining fertility behaviour. For instance, there are substantial differences in the number of desired children between educated and uneducated women in developing countries, ranging from 6-7 children in Sub-Saharan Africa to 3-4 in North Africa, Asia and Latin America (Martin, 1995). Many factors explain the role of education in shaping these differentials. One possible explanation is that more educated women tend to have increased autonomy and bargaining power within the household, affecting demand for children (Dreze and Murthi, 2001). Women’s increased bargaining power may result in a smaller desired family size, as some studies show that women want fewer children than their husbands (e.g. Bankole and Singh, 1998). In addition, education enhances women’s receptiveness to more modern social norms regarding desired number of children (Dreze and Murthi, 2001). For example, according to the ideational theory, women’s exposure to global communication networks through schooling can lead to the rejection of traditional values of desired family size (Pradhan, 2015), exerting a downward pressure on fertility. Reduced family size desire can also be explained by a de