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

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.

The effect of education on fertility: Evidence from a compulsory schooling reform

“…In addition, compared to mothers from other developed countries, German mothers experience relatively high wage losses due to child-related employment interruptions (Gangl & Ziefle 2009). Crossnational comparisons of fiscal and parental leave policies conclude that the German institutional framework favors traditional "male bread-winner" families and encourages mothers to stay out 7 The study closest to ours is Fort et al (2011) which examines fertility in Europe using reforms to compulsory schooling from eight countries. However, this study considers only four German states which introduced the reform simultaneously in 1967.…”

“…Earlier research stresses the relationship between low fertility and increased women's educational attainment, but recent studies for several developed countries show that the negative correlation disappears or becomes even positive after accounting for the endogeneity of schooling (see, e.g., Monstad et al 2008, Fort et al 2011, McCrary & Royer 2011. 1 The mixed evidence on the education-fertility-nexus across countries may reflect the importance of alternative channels through which education affects fertility (e.g., opportunity costs or assortative mating).…”

“…On the one hand, education increases women's permanent wages and thus 4 A number of studies has already exploited the German reform of the extension of compulsory schooling. See, e.g., Pischke & von Wachter (2008), Brunello et al (2009), Siedler (2010, Kemptner et al (2011), Piopiunik (2011), Fort et al (2011. 5 The timing of the reform at the local level varied also within the states because of shortfalls of teachers and a lack of infrastructure in rural areas (Leschinsky & Roeder 1980).…”

“…McCrary & Royer (2011) explore school entry rules in two U.S. states (California and Texas) and do not find any causal effect of education on fertility, neither on the incidence of motherhood, nor on the timing of first births. Recent contributions by Fort et al (2011) andBraakmann (2011) present contradictory evidence from mandatory schooling reforms in Europe. 7 Their results suggest that more education significantly increases the number of births.…”

Do more-schooled women have fewer children and delay childbearing? Evidence from a sample of US twins

“…Their IV estimates indicate no significant effect of schooling on the number of children or the probability of being childless, but they do find that schooling reduces the probability of a teen birth and delays first births into the 20s and late 30s. Fort et al (2011) estimate the effect of schooling on completed fertility and probability of being childless using changes in compulsory schooling laws in eight European countries. They surprisingly find that more schooling leads women to have more children and reduces the incidence of childlessness.…”