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Originally Posted by snowy
Actually, there is! Education for women. When a country's women are educated, the total fertility rate of that country decreases.
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I was under the impression that wasn't consistent from country to country. ake Sierra Leone, for example:
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Information was collected through a census and a household survey in Sierra Leone to assess the effect of female education on fertility. Data from Sierra Leone exhibit the inverted U-shape relationship between female education and fertility which has been shown previously in developing countries. This contrasts with findings from developed countries where increases in female education are associated with linear decreases in fertility. The Sierra Leone study showed that reproductive-age hosuewives with some primary education had more children than women with no education. Attainment of some secondary education decreased fertility but not below the level of uneducated housewives. It is only college education that lowers the number of children born to substantially below that of uneducated women. A multiple regression technqiue within the general framework of the household model was used to find the female education threshold, i.e., the critical education level at which fertility begins to decline. An explanation for this education/fertility relationship is that educated women tend to enter the job market in jobs which are incompatible with childraising, whereas women with less education work at jobs compatible with childraising and use the added income to afford greater fertility. Making available more career-type jobs for women, reducing the level of child mortality in a country, and improving health facilities would tend to cause a lowering of fertility.
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Female education and fertility: some evidence from Sierra Leone.