DP8339 Does Parental Education Affect Fertility? Evidence from Pre-Demographic Transition Prussia

Author(s): Sascha O. Becker , Francesco Cinnirella , Ludger Woessmann

Publication Date: April 2011

Keyword(s): Demographic Transition , Female Education , Fertility , Nineteenth Century Prussia

JEL(s): J13 , J24 , N33

Programme Areas: Labour Economics

Link to this Page: www.cepr.org/pubs/dps/DP8339.asp.asp

While women's employment opportunities, relative wages, and the child quantity-quality trade-off have been studied as factors underlying historical fertility limitation, the role of parental education has received little attention. We combine Prussian county data from three censuses--1816, 1849, and 1867--to estimate the relationship between women’s education and their fertility before the demographic transition. Despite controlling for several demand and supply factors, we find a negative residual effect of women’s education on fertility. Instrumental-variable estimates, using exogenous variation in women's education driven by differences in landownership inequality, suggest that the effect of women’s education on fertility is causal.