Do More-Schooled Women Have Fewer Children and Delay Childbearing? Evidence from a Sample of U.S. Twins
33 Pages Posted: 6 Dec 2011
Date Written: December 5, 2011
Abstract
Using data on MZ (monozygotic, identical) female twins from the Minnesota Twin Registry, we estimate the causal effect of schooling on completed fertility, probability of being childless and age at first birth, using the within MZ twins methodology. We find strong cross-sectional associations between schooling and the fertility outcomes and some evidence that more schooling causes women to have fewer children and delay childbearing, though not to the extent that interpreting cross-sectional associations as causal would imply. Our conclusions are robust when taking account of (1) endogenous within-twin pair schooling differences due to reverse causality and (2) measurement error in schooling. We also investigate possible mechanisms and find that the effect of women’s schooling on completed fertility is not mediated through husband’s schooling but rather through age at first marriage.
Keywords: twins, twins fixed-effects, schooling, fertility
JEL Classification: I2, J13
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Recommended Papers
-
Education, HIV, and Early Fertility: Experimental Evidence from Kenya
By Esther Duflo, Pascaline Dupas, ...
-
Education, HIV, and Early Fertility: Experimental Evidence from Kenya
By Esther Duflo, Pascaline Dupas, ...
-
Years of Schooling, Human Capital and the Body Mass Index of European Females
By Giorgio Brunello, Daniele Fabbri, ...
-
More Schooling, More Children: Compulsory Schooling Reforms and Fertility in Europe
By Margherita Fort, Nicole E. Schneeweis, ...
-
More Schooling, More Children: Compulsory Schooling Reforms and Fertility in Europe
By Margherita Fort, Nicole E. Schneeweis, ...
-
More Schooling, More Children: Compulsory Schooling Reforms and Fertility in Europe
By Margherita Fort, Nicole E. Schneeweis, ...
-
Childbearing History, Later Life Health, and Mortality in Germany
By Karsten Hank
-
Adolescent Fertility in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Effects and Solutions
By Amanda L. Glassman, Rachel Silverman, ...