The Effects of Education on Fertility: Evidence From Taiwan

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of women's education on fertility. For identification, we use the 1968 compulsory education law change in Taiwan, which generated a regression discontinuity design (RDD) setting. We use the whole population of women from the 1980 and 2010 Population Censuses. Results of our RDD estimation using the exact date of birth suggest that the law change was effective in boosting women's education, but it did not have any impact on fertility. This is in stark contrast to most previous studies using only the birth year as the running variable or using it to construct instruments, which find that women's education depresses fertility. This study demonstrates that using a discrete running variable in RDD may generate a false discontinuity for an otherwise continuous regression function. (JEL J13, C21, I2)

How and why studies disagree about the effects of education on health: A systematic review and meta-analysis of studies of compulsory schooling laws

“…For example, studies categorized as addressing “alcohol-related” outcomes examined the number of drinks (56), probability of drinking (65), probability of drinking over the weekly limit (40), probability of currently drinking (50), probability of being a moderate drinker (77), and probability of drinking all seven days in the last week (114). Similarly, for fertility, measures included the probability of first birth by a given age (38, 47, 49, 58, 74, 88, 101), time until first birth (44, 52), probability of ever giving birth or of childlessness (49, 72, 76), and number of children (ever, or by a given age) (47, 58, 61, 72, 76, 88). Even within each of these subcategories, heterogeneity complicates the ability to produce a summary effect measure.…”

The Positive Effect of Women’s Education on Fertility in Low-Fertility China

“…Another common approach exploits educational reforms as exogenous sources of change in women's education and obtains an instrumental variable (IV) estimate of the effect of women's education. Exploiting compulsory education law changes, studies have found a negative effect of women's education on fertility in Germany (Cygan-Rehm & Maeder, 2013) and England (Fort et al, 2016), a null effect in Norway (Monstad et al, 2008), UK (Geruso & Royer, 2018) and Taiwan (Kan & Lee, 2018), and a positive effect across Continental Europe (Austria, Denmark, France, Italy, and the Netherlands) (Fort et al, 2016) and in the UK (Braakmann, 2011). Two studies using higher education expansion as an exogenous increase in probabilities of women having a college degree found a negative effect on fertility in Germany (Kamhöfer & Westphal, 2019) and South Korea (Sohn & Lee, 2019).…”

“…This is consistent with the expectation that the correlation between more education and later age at marriage is drive by selection and reverse causality. Several studies set outside China have also shown that the relationship between education and postponement of marriage or first birth is not causal (Cygan-Rehm & Maeder, 2013;Fort et al, 2016;Kan & Lee, 2018;Lefgren & McIntyre, 2006;Neiss et al, 2002;Rodgers et al, 2008;Tropf & Mandemakers, 2017). Specifically, studies using within-identical twin models and set in the US, Denmark, and the UK illustrate that the association between education and later age at first birth is largely, if not completely, due to the unobserved family background factors that are related to both education and entry into parenthood (Neiss et al, 2002;Rodgers et al, 2008;Tropf & Mandemakers, 2017).…”

“…Indeed, the few studies of the causal effect of women's education on fertility, set in both developing and developed contexts, have generated mixed evidence. While some demonstrate a negative causal effect (Cygan-Rehm & Maeder, 2013;Fort et al, 2016;Kamhöfer & Westphal, 2019;Osili & Long, 2008;Sohn & Lee, 2019), others find that the negative effect disappears (Breierova & Duflo, 2004;Geruso & Royer, 2018;Kan & Lee, 2018;Kramarz et al, 2021;McCrary & Royer, 2011;Monstad et al, 2008) or even reverses to positive (Braakmann, 2011;Fort et al, 2016) as soon as endogeneity of women's education is accounted for. This study presents new evidence of the causal effect of women's education on fertility in a low-fertility developing context.…”

Twenty Key Challenges in Environmental and Resource Economics

“…Education and income or economic development have long been established as crucial for fertility (see e.g. the reviews of the literature provided by Kan and Lee 2018 ; Fox et al 2019 ). To integrate these findings into a holistic approach is a mediating challenge for future research.…”