Age at First Child Does Education Delay Fertility Timing? The Case of Kenya

Ferre, Celine

关键词: ADOLESCENCE;    ADOLESCENT;    ADOLESCENT CHILDBEARING;    ADOLESCENT FERTILITY;    ADOLESCENT GIRLS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-4833
RP-ID  :  WPS4833

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Completing additional years of educationnecessarily entails spending more time in school. There isnaturally a rather mechanical effect of schooling onfertility if women tend not to have children whilecontinuing to attend high school or college, thus delayingthe beginning of and shortening their reproductive life.This paper uses data from the Kenyan Demographic and HealthSurveys of 1989, 1993, 1998, and 2003 to uncover the impactof staying one more year in school on teenage fertility. Toget around the endogeneity issue between schooling andfertility preferences, the analysis uses the 1985 Kenyaneducation reform as an instrument for years of education.The authors find that adding one more year of educationdecreases by at least 10 percentage points the probabilityof giving birth when still a teenager. The probability ofhaving one's first child before age 20, when having atleast completed primary education, is about 65 percent;therefore, for this means a reduction of about 15 percent inteenage fertility rates for this group. One additional yearof school curbs the probability of becoming a mother eachyear by 7.3 percent for women who have completed at leastprimary education, and 5.6 percent for women with at least asecondary degree. These results (robust to a wide array ofspecifications) are of crucial interest to policy anddecision makers who set up health and educational policies.This paper shows that investing in education can havepositive spillovers on health.