The Trade-off between Fertility and Education: Evidence from before the Demographic Transition

Sascha Becker, Francesco Cinnirella and Ludger Woessmann

No 4557, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: The trade-off between child quantity and education is a crucial ingredient of unified growth models that explain the transition from Malthusian stagnation to modern growth. We present first evidence that such a trade-off indeed existed before the demographic transition, exploiting a unique census-based dataset of 334 Prussian counties in 1849. Estimating two separate instrumental-variable models that instrument education by landownership inequality and distance to Wittenberg and fertility by previous-generation fertility and sex-imbalance ratio, we find that causation between fertility and education runs both ways. Furthermore, education in 1849 predicts the fertility transition in 1880-1905.

Keywords: schooling; 19th-century Prussia; unified growth theory; fertility transition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 J13 N33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2009-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-ltv
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Published - published in: Journal of Economic Growth, 2010, 15 (3), 177–204

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Related works:
Journal Article: The trade-off between fertility and education: evidence from before the demographic transition (2010)
Working Paper: The trade-off between fertility and education: Evidence from before the demographic transition (2010)
Working Paper: The Trade-off between Fertility and Education: Evidence from before the Demographic Transition (2009)
Working Paper: The Trade-off between Fertility and Education: Evidence from before the Demographic Transition (2009)
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