Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/272484 
Year of Publication: 
2023
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 15857
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Using data from the China Family Panel Studies, this paper exploits the Compulsory Education Law of China implemented in the 1980s to empirically examine the causal impact of women's education on fertility in rural China by difference-in-differences methods. The results show that an additional year of schooling lowered the number of children a woman would have by approximately 0.09 children, postponed the age of first childbirth by 0.7 years, and reduced the probability of having a second child or more children by 0.18 among those mothers whose first child was a girl. In addition to the income effect, these results are also partly explained by more educated women preferring quality to quantity of children, placing a greater value on leisure and no longer perceiving children as the sole focus in their lives.
Subjects: 
compulsory education law
demographic transition
fertility
women's education
quality and quantity of children
JEL: 
I25
J11
J13
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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