Does womens education affect fertility? Evidence from pre-demographic transition Prussia

Sascha Becker, Francesco Cinnirella and Ludger Wößmann
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Ludger Woessmann

Munich Reprints in Economics from University of Munich, Department of Economics

Abstract: While womens employment opportunities, relative wages, and the childquantityquality trade-off have been studied as factors underlyinghistorical fertility limitation, the role of womens education hasreceived little attention. We combine Prussian county data from threecensusesu1816, 1849, and 1867uto estimate the relationship betweenwomens education and their fertility before the demographic transition.Despite controlling for several demand and supply factors, we find anegative residual effect of womens education on fertility.Instrumental-variable estimates using educational variation derivingfrom landownership concentration, as well as panel estimates controllingfor fixed effects of counties, suggest that the effect of womenseducation on fertility is causal.

Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

Published in European Review of Economic History 1 17(2013): pp. 24-44

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lmu:muenar:20263

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