More Schooling, More Children: Compulsory Schooling Reforms and Fertility in Europe

Rudolf Winter-Ebmer, Nicole Schneeweis and Margherita Fort

No 8609, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: Instrumental variables; Education; Fertility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I2 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cis, nep-cwa, nep-dem, nep-edu, nep-eur and nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (48)

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Related works:
Working Paper: More Schooling, More Children: Compulsory Schooling Reforms and Fertility in Europe (2011)
Working Paper: More Schooling, More Children: Compulsory Schooling Reforms and Fertility in Europe (2011)
Working Paper: More Schooling, More Children: Compulsory Schooling Reforms and Fertility in Europe (2011)
Working Paper: More Schooling, More Children: Compulsory Schooling Reforms and Fertility in Europe (2011)
Working Paper: More Schooling, More Children: Compulsory Schooling Reforms and Fertility in Europe (2011)
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