As world population moves into the twenty-first century, the increasing population growth rate has become a concern for both sociologists and economists. As the majority of the developed world seeks for an answer to the ever-growing population issue, the Third-World finds itself pin-pointed as not only the cause, but also the solution to the problem. Over the past few decades, in most parts of the Third-World, fertility rates have fallen partly as a result of parents’ increasing awareness and control over the expense of children, and partly due to the increased opportunities offered to educated women (Gould, 125). Many economists associate these changes in awareness and time allocation, and the ensuing decline in fertility, with the widespread expansion of education across the Third-World. As the number of children enrolled in school continues to increase, economists feel that not only will costs of education, but also the knowledge accumulated through an exposure to contraception and Westernized culture will cause a reorganization of family structure in favor of fewer children.
Unfortunately, in Third-World countries statistics and information linking education and population growth are sparse and unreliable, and it is, therefore, difficult for population economists to produce a definite answer to the question of how and why education has a negative effect on population growth. In this account, I will focus on the studies of three economists, who draw similar conclusions by approaching the issue of education and fertility in the Third-World from differing perspectives. William G. Axinn situated his 1993 study in the small Nepalese region of Sangila, which has experienced both dramatic changes in education and fertility limitation over the course of his subjects’ lifetimes (Axinn, 481). Both public education and contraception had only recently been introduced into the society, and, therefore, Sangila had very little widespread exposure to Western ideas of fertility limitation and contraception at the time of the study (Axinn, 483). Teresa Castro Martin and W.T.S. Gould both conducted their studies on a much wider scale than Axinn, examining a large number of Third-World countries in varying stages of demographic transition, across several continents. Both Gould and Martin rely heavily on the information supplied by the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) conducted in the late 1980’s and the World Fertility Survey conducted in the late 1970’s. When comparing the results of the three studies, one must keep in mind that the difference in the subject matter of the studies had a profound effect on the outcome of Axinn’s analysis in relation to those of Martin and Gould. In spite of these significant discrepancies in their subject matter, the three studies all cited a direct correlation between both parental and child education and the demographic factors of fertility and mortality.
The effects of parents’ education on fertility and mortality have often been the central focus of discussions on education and population growth; and for years it was the only factor considered in such studies. In his article, Axinn stresses the importance of parental education when he states that in order to experience a declined household fertility "parents themselves must have attended school and learned something, which alters their values, plans, expectations, alternatives or behavior in such a way that they decide to limit their fertility" (Axinn, 481). It is precisely because education has the ability to influence so many aspects of an adult’s life and her/his relationship with her/his children, that the effects of education on fertility are so difficult to decipher. While studying the effects of primary schooling on fertility, the economists realized that, due to the multiple factors involved in determining women’s fertility choices, they must divide their studies between young, middle-aged, and older women. William Axinn stresses the importance of the difference in fertility motivations between women aged 25-34, who would most likely be interested in having more children, and women aged 35-44, who would have little or no desire for a larger family (Axinn, 485). Education can also affect socio-economic, cultural and political roles, which all play a part in determining desired fertility levels and further complicate any attempt to make a direct connection between population growth and education levels.
On a societal level, the influence of parental education on fertility is undeniable. The pattern of lowest fertility among the highly educated holds for all societies, and economists have found that much of this is due to the education levels of the mother (Martin, 189). Although the studies tend to focus on the mother’s education, male education certainly does play a prominent role in the fertility levels of a household or community. When the father is educated, he is more likely to promote contraceptive use and healthcare. Oddly, in some countries, such as Sangila, the father’s education level can sometimes statistically increase the mother’s desire to have children (Axinn, 492). Such occurrences are uncommon, however, and more often the father’s education plays a small, but negative role in the number of children born to a household.
Although the contributions of male education are important, most economists agree that it is the mother’s education level that will have the more prominent effect on fertility. William Axinn states that when women are given the chance to attend school, they have the ability to gain social status through means other than childbearing (Axinn, 482). Education also provides women with exposure to Western family formation values, which would increase their awareness of fertility limitation and contraception (Axinn, 482). All of these advantages granted to women through increased education, as well as the added costs of sending the children to school, greatly increase the opportunity cost of childbearing, and, therefore have a negative effect on fertility (Martin, 187). The time dedicated to education generally prolongs marriage, and therefore reduces the woman’s childbearing years (Gould, 132). Certainly, the relationship between female education and fertility is not universal across all cultures and societies. The effect of individual schooling on fertility is negligible in a country where education is not widespread, most likely because the cultures and practices taught in the schools have not been widely accepted in the woman’s home society (Martin, 190). Therefore, it is not surprising that the association between fertility and female education is the weakest in Sub-Saharan Africa, where public education is still in its earliest stages, and the society values large families for agricultural and cultural reasons (Martin, 190). Latin American countries have the highest correlation between women’s education and fertility. Unlike in Sub-Saharan Africa, education is fairly prevalent, and the Western practices of fertility reduction and contraception are widely accepted. As a result, the median marriage age of women with more than ten years of education is more than 4 years older than women with no education in Sub-Saharan Africa, while in Latin America the differential between educated and uneducated women is 6-8 years (Martin, 191). The size of the age differential greatly affects the fertility rates of the women in these societies.
Unfortunately, not all countries and groups of women experience the same effects of education on fertility. As a result of the complexities of the relationship, in some situations, a woman’s education can result in no change in fertility, or even increased fertility. In countries where the cultural values stress high fertility, oftentimes, increased education can promote childbearing and enforce the cultural standards (Axinn, 492). Many studies have also shown that small amounts of education can often result in higher fertility than no formal education. Gould feels uneducated women have lower fertility rates than mildly educated women because they tend to do more manual labor, which could result in more pregnancy complications (Gould, 129). He stresses that lower fertility only implies fewer births, but not fewer pregnancies. Martin interprets the discrepancy in fertility-education patterns differently. She feels that small amounts of education can initially cause increased fertility because it will end the traditional practices of prolonged breastfeeding (which often prevents conception) and postpartum abstinence (Martin, 188). In both situations, the fertility increased only temporarily, and was generally offset by contraceptive education.
The growing prevalence of contraception in Third-World countries is arguably one of the most important causes of decreased fertility. Many Third-World countries have been promoting family planning and contraceptive use in schools as a means of regulating the population. Third-World governments have found that it is beneficial to invest in family planning because it reduces the externality costs, such as welfare and public schooling, of large families (Gould, 128). In every country, the Total Fertility Rate exceeds the desired fertility rate, which implies that, if contraceptives became readily available, there would be a high demand for modes of fertility reduction (Martin, 193). More importantly, in all countries but Sri Lanka, increasing female education is accompanied by a decline in the level of desired fertility, which further increases the need for contraceptives (Martin, 193).
The rate of contraceptive use across countries varies greatly with socio-economic and cultural standards, but in nearly all Third-World countries, the differential between educated and uneducated women’s contraceptive use is significant. Education has had the greatest effect upon women’s use of contraception in Latin America, where it is more prevalent and culturally acceptable. Martin found that the actual size of most educated Latin American women’s families rarely exceeds their desired number of children, while uneducated women tend to produce families that are at least two times the size of what they desired (Martin, 193). This same pattern can be observed in Kenya, where the contraception has yet to become a commonly accepted and integral part of family planning. Uneducated women, on average, gave birth to 2.3 more children in the 1980’s than they desired (Martin, 193).
In Sangila, William Axinn found that the contraceptive patterns were quite different from other Third-World countries. Due to Sangila’s prolonged period of high fertility levels with no family planning and very minimal education, Axinn believes that contraception will gradually become accepted in the society, but at the time of his study he found minimal connections between female education and contraceptive use. He cites that only one third of all women aged 25-44 reported ever having used contraceptives, but that rate is increasing steadily (Axinn, 487). The low rates of contraception usage among the families of Sangila depend heavily on the fact that sterility is the most common mode of contraception in their society, therefore, any young women who maintain a desire to increase their family size would not be able to use any form of contraception (Axinn, 487). As a result of this, Axinn was unable to find any direct correlation between education and contraception among the younger women of Sangila, because, as the only women to have been exposed to education, they were not yet ready to stop having children (Axinn, 488). Among the older women, who had little or no desire to continue having children, Axinn discovered that the odds that a couple would use contraception were 75% higher if the woman had gone to school (Axinn, 489).
Although the rates of contraceptive use generally correlate with the woman’s exposure to education, as we have seen in Sangila, social and cultural factors can play a role in a woman’s decisions to use contraception. In Latin America, the most successful Third-World region in the studies, Martin found that educated women in the highest status of society are less likely to use contraceptives than women in the middle strata of society (Martin, 133). In spite of the upper class’s increased exposure to contraception and health care, many women in the highest levels of society are strongly affected by social constraints, and, therefore, choose to endure higher fertility levels than their middle class counterparts.
The role of education in determining population growth reaches beyond its effects on contraception and fertility; parental education also plays a large role in determining child and infant mortality rates. In fact the fall in mortality in the Third-World has been more closely associated with education than the decline in fertility (Gould, 134). In his studies, W.T.S. Gould found that child mortality levels fell by 20% when a parent had attended at least 1-3 years of formal schooling (Gould, 135). When a parent has attended school, he/she is more likely to give their children better medical treatment, maintain a higher level of hygiene around the house and be able to provide a better life for his/her children, which would help ensure that the child lives into maturity. Children aged 1-4, born to a mother with no education are four times as likely to die in childhood than children born to mothers with a higher education level (Gould, 136).
Education can also help to eliminate the gender-preferential treatment, where boys are given more food and treated better than their sisters, that occurs in many regions of the Third-World. In India, increased female education helped to lower the rate of male child mortality by 77 per 1000 children, and female child mortality by more than 100 per 1000, which shows that the traditional values that taught male preference may be diminishing with increased education (Gould, 136). The effects of education on adult mortality levels are much harder to calculate due to the faulty nature of mortality statistics in the Third-World. Gould hypothesizes that adults with a secondary school education live around 6 years longer than adults without any schooling, but he acknowledges that the statistics are flawed (Gould, 134). In spite of the unreliability of adult mortality rates, the approximate accuracy of the infant and child mortality rates, and their direct relationship with parental education further supports the hypothesis that education has an invaluable effect on population growth in the Third-World.
Throughout this essay, I have been focusing solely on the effects of parental education on population growth, but many economists feel that the education of the children themselves could play a larger role in determining fertility rates in the Third-World. All three of the economists cite Caldwell’s Theory of Fertility Behavior in some form, which states that the "costs of education of successive children over a short period of time is, in the presence of an active family planning programme, the most significant element on controlling family size" (Axinn, 483). Education increases the cost of children and, therefore, when they become too expensive, parents choose to reduce the number of children to help them stay within their means. In many countries the fees for books and uniforms combined with the net loss of not having a child around the house often make up more than half of the family income. In Kenya, the per capita GNP in 1993 was $390 (US) and the fees for schooling averaged around $200 (US) per year (Gould, 126). The child’s education often repays the parents after several years, due to the higher wages that the educated can demand in the workforce, but these long-term benefits do not alleviate the burden of the initial years of schooling. Therefore, the majority of women who send their first child to school often choose to quickly regulate their fertility, while mothers who do not send their children to school continue to increase their family size (Axinn, 486).
Based on the recent studies from the 1970’s and 80’s, education plays a significant role in the limitation of population growth throughout the Third-World. The effects of education have continued to increase over time, and as public schooling and family planning become more widespread throughout under-privileged countries, we will begin to see larger universal decreases in fertility and mortality. Once both education and contraception become fully integrated into these societies, and the cultures become more accepting of Western values such as fertility limitation, economists hope to see the Third-World joining the more developed nations in the pattern of low fertility and low mortality.
Axinn, William G. "The Effects of Children’s Schooling on Fertility Limitation". Population Studies, Volume 47, Issue 3 9Nov., 1993) 481-493.
W. T. S. Gould, "Education and Population Growth" in People and Education in the Third World, by W. T. S. Gould, Longman Scientific and Technical, Essex, England, 1993, Chapter 5, pp. 123-145.
Teresa Castro Martin, "Women's Education and Fertility: Results from 26 Demographic and Health Surveys", Studies in Family Planning, Vol. 26, No. 4, July/August 1995, pp. 187-202.