The Effect of Education on Fertility: Evidence from a Compulsory Schooling Reform

Kamila Cygan-Rehm and Miriam Maeder

No 528, SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research from DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP)

Abstract: This paper investigates the effect of education on fertility under inflexible labor market conditions. We exploit exogenous variation from a German compulsory schooling reform to deal with the endogeneity of education. By using data from two complementary data sets, we examine different fertility outcomes over the life cycle. In contrast to evidence for other developed countries, we find that increased education causally reduces completed fertility. This negative effect operates through a postponement of first births away from teenage years, and no catch-up later in life. We attribute these findings to the particularly high opportunity costs of child-rearing in Germany.

Keywords: fertility; education; childlessness; timing of births; educational reform (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 J13 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 47 p.
Date: 2012
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-edu and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The effect of education on fertility: Evidence from a compulsory schooling reform (2013)
Working Paper: The Effect of Education on Fertility: Evidence from a Compulsory Schooling Reform (2012)
Working Paper: The Effect of Education on Fertility: Evidence from a Compulsory Schooling Reform (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp528

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