The generalised growth of women’s education level is considered an important long-term determinant of fertility transition in advanced societies. However, there are cultural specific traits that may interact with this trends and contribute to explain cross-country fertility divergence. Literature suggests that the effect of expanding education on fertility decline could be more moderated in societies where the degree of gender equality is higher and family ties are weaker, but an empirical test of the suggested interactions lacks. We test these hypothesis on 48,463 observations nested in 39 countries and 3 waves from a combination of the World Values Survey and the European Values Study between 1981 and 2009. Multilevel statistical analyses reveal that the interaction between national-level degree in gender equality and the cohort-level women’s education is positively associated with completed fertility. Conversely the stronger is the adherence to familistic values, the more precipitous is fertility decline as education spreads.