Total fertility rate, women's education, and women's work: What are the relationships?

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a statistical study, using cross-national data, on the relationships between total fertility rate and women's level of education and women's labor participation. Aggregate data on seventy-one countries were collected from numerous sources. Eight variables related to women's fertility, mortality, economic status, labor participation, and education are analyzed using multivariate linear regression analyses. Two models are considered. The first model regresses five variables on total fertility rate: per capita Cross National Product (GNP), percentage of women ages 15 to 19 who are married, female life expectancy at birth, calories available as a percentage of need, and percentage of married couples using contraception. The second model includes two additional regressors: the average number of years of schooling for women, and the percentage of women in the labor force. These seven variables are regressed on total fertility rate. Although the data are crude, the results of the analyses suggest that the model which incorporates women's level of education and women's labor participation captures the data better than the smaller model. The full model suggests that the percentage of women in the labor force is directly related to total fertility rate, whereas the average number of years of education for women is indirectly related to total fertility rate.