DP8609 More Schooling, More Children: Compulsory Schooling Reforms and Fertility in Europe
Author(s): | Margherita Fort, Nicole Schneeweis, Rudolf Winter-Ebmer |
Publication Date: | October 2011 |
Keyword(s): | education, fertility, instrumental variables |
JEL(s): | I2, J13 |
Programme Areas: | Labour Economics |
Link to this Page: | cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=8609 |
We study the relationship between education and fertility, exploiting compulsory schooling reforms in Europe as source of exogenous variation in education. Using data from 8 European countries, we assess the causal effect of education on the number of biological kids and the incidence of childlessness. We find that more education causes a substantial decrease in childlessness and an increase in the average number of children per woman. Our findings are robust to a number of falsification checks and we can provide complementary empirical evidence on the mechanisms leading to these surprising results.