Education Leads To Smaller Healthier Families
Throughout the developing world, literacy and years of schooling have increased for both males and females over the last four decades. Demographers and sociologists have observed that improved education for women and girls is closely related to improvements in health and to falling fertility rates.
Enrolment ratios have increased since 1960 in all regions and at all education levels, especially at the primary level. In sub-Saharan Africa, however, primary school enrolment was still only 75% in 1995 and has actually decreased since 1980. Enrolment has also declined recently in other countries affected by financial crises.
In low- and middle-income countries, 53% of the relevant age group were enrolled in secondary schools in 1995, up from 41% in 1980. This compares poorly with the high-income countries, where virtually all children have some secondary education, and 35% have some tertiary education (college and graduate school).
The limited data available on years of schooling illustrate the stark contrasts that persist. For instance, in Burundi, men and women have had, on average, 5 and 4 years of schooling, respectively. In Costa Rica, those numbers are 10 and 9 years, respectively; in Canada, 18 and 17 years.
To foster the social development of girls, some countries have begun to promote girls’ education through waiving fees, or providing a small payment or food allocation for girls’ attendance, and by adapting the school system to facilitate their participation. Since 1990, the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee has, for example, created over 30,000 schools that offer non-formal primary education; 70% of the pupils are girls.
One of the strongest and most consistent relationships in demography is between mothers’ education and infant mortality – the children of women with more years of schooling are much more likely to survive infancy. More-educated mothers have better health care, marry later and are significantly more likely to use contraception to space their children. They have better skills for obtaining and evaluating information on health care, disease prevention and nutrition. They also have better access to resources, through earning opportunities and marriage, and can manage them better. They are more likely to recognise the advantages of educating their children.
The relationship between women’s education and fertility is also complex, but the underlying pattern in most countries is that the more years of schooling a woman has, the fewer children she is likely to have. In a small number of countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, fertility rises slightly with the first few years of women’s schooling, then falls with subsequent years of education. In all recent studies, additional secondary education for women correlates with lower fertility.
Educated women are more likely to use modern methods of contraception, and they tend to marry later. Educated parents of both sexes also generally desire smaller families than those with less education, and educated women tend to act on that reproductive preference for fewer children. In other words, women with more schooling are more likely to have the number of children they say they want.
According to a study of Egyptian families, the educational aspirations that women and men have for their children, particularly their daughters, are significant factors in how many children they desire. Parents who hope for better education for their female children tend to want smaller families, perhaps so that they can provide more fully for the offspring they have.
