Building: Main Venue Building
Room: room 9
Date: 2017-02-09 09:00 AM – 10:30 AM
Last modified: 2017-01-25
Abstract
In this paper, we study the relationship between female education and fertility in thirty countries of Sub- Saharan Africa. Using data from the latest DHS surveys, we reconstruct the life histories of 260,000 mothers, who gave birth to 1,260,000 children, and use Cox regressions to analyze the inter-birth intervals. Our model includes covariates at the individual, family, household, community, and country levels. Furthermore, we explore interactions between education and all the other covariates in the base model. We find that education remains a strong determinant of fertility, even after controlling for all other covariates. We also find significant interactions, confirming the complex and variable links between education and the other factors affecting reproductive behavior. Finally, we find that large differences among countries remain, requiring further investigation.