Free Primary Education, Fertility, and Women’s Access to the Labor Market: Evidence from Ethiopia
利用埃塞俄比亚取消学费政策带来的地理和时间差异，研究发现女性受教育年限增加显著降低了生育率，其机制是劳动力市场机会增加和理想子女数减少。
Abstract This article investigates the causal relationship between women’s schooling and fertility by exploiting variation generated by the removal of school fees in Ethiopia. The increase in schooling caused by the reform is identified using both geographic variation in the intensity of its impact and temporal variation generated by the timing of the implementation. The model finds that the removal of school fees led to an increase in schooling for Ethiopian women and that each additional year of schooling led to a reduction in fertility. An investigation of the underlying mechanisms linking schooling and fertility finds that the decline in fertility is associated with an increase in labor market opportunity and a reduction in women’s ideal number of children.