The Demographic Promise of Expanded Female Education: Trends in the Age at First Birth in Malawi

Abstract

The expansion of female education has been promoted as a way to postpone the age of first birth. In sub-Saharan Africa, the first cohorts to benefit from policies that expanded access to education are now reaching adulthood and beginning childbearing. I investigate whether the expansion of education in Malawi, which implemented a free primary education policy in 1994 and subsequently expanded secondary schooling, has led to a later age at first birth and whether the education gradient in fertility timing has remained stable over time. Despite increases in female grade attainment over the past twenty years, the age at first birth has not changed. Using instrumental variables analysis, I find a significant negative association between grade attainment and age at first birth, suggesting that the deterioration of school quality and shift in the age pattern of enrollment that accompanied educational expansion may have compromised the transformative potential of education.

Trends in the age at reproductive transitions in the developing world: The role of education

“…Recently, with the unparalleled growth in the population of young people, increasing attention has been devoted to identifying conditions for a successful transition to adulthood and the role of girls' schooling in the timing of reproductive events (Lloyd 2005(Lloyd , 2010Mensch et al 2005;Clark and Mathur 2012;Grant 2015). DHS data indicate that girls who are enrolled in school are less likely to report initiating sex than their same-age counterparts who are not enrolled (Lloyd 2009).…”

“…Researchers have discussed a number of mechanisms underlying the association between formal schooling of girls and subsequent fertility, fertility preferences, or both, although data are often lacking to support these assertions. A number of factors that underlie the negative gradient between education and fertility have been mentioned, including greater autonomy, exposure to new gender and childbearing norms, improved knowledge about behaviours that enhance the health of women and children, development of social capital to navigate health institutions, alteration of childbearing preferences, growth in women's earning potential, and the concomitant rise in the opportunity cost of women's time, assortative mating, and increased material aspirations (Jejeebhoy 1995;Subbarao and Raney 1995;Ainsworth et al 1996;Appleton 1996;Bledsoe et al 1999;Diamond et al 1999;Lloyd and Mensch 1999;Basu 2002;Ferré 2009;Behrman 2015;Grant 2015). Literacy has also been said to provide the tools for learning and acquiring knowledge (Jejeebhoy 1995), thus improving women's ability to understand and absorb family planning messages and to consider the desirability of a smaller family (Bledsoe and Cohen 1993).…”

The effect of education on teenage fertility: causal evidence for Argentina

“…This negative effect operates through a human capital channel (one additional year of schooling reduced the teenage fertility rate by roughly 26.9 to 35.5 per thousand points) and a weaker 'incapacitation' effect (an increase of one percentage point in the enrollment rate reduced the teenage fertility rate by roughly 2.4 to 3.3 per thousand points). Education reform LFE reduced repetition rates (Crosta 2007), which may explain the weak 'incapacitation' effect (similar to the case of Malawi; Grant 2015).…”

“…In columns (1) and (3) the instrumented explanatory variable is enrollment rate; in columns (2) and (4) the instrumented explanatory variable is female enrollment rate. Source: own calculations ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.1 a Other covariates included are: economic activity, unemployment, public expenditure on education and health, and Plan Nacer beneficiaries students declined, due to lower rates of grade repetition; and the reduction in the time girls remain in school substantially weakened the 'incapacitation' effect (Grant 2015). Although the estimated effects are very large, we should remember that LATE identifies causal effects for the group complying with the reform (i.e., young people who did not leave school after 7 years because of the reform and, otherwise, would not have pursued a higher level of education).…”

What if fertility decline is not permanent? The need for an evolutionarily informed approach to understanding low fertility

“…Students probably need to perceive a benefit to education, but if socio-ecological conditions plummet too far they may be less likely to follow the route to low fertility through increased education. Quality of education also matters [26], which is at least partially connected to infrastructure and resource availability. The difficult fact of wealth inequality is that pressure from energy shortages will not be experienced equally across society, which could lead to major reductions in per capita access to resources for large segments of the population.…”