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Does women's education affect fertility? Evidence from pre-demographic transition Prussia

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  • Sascha O. Becker
  • Francesco Cinnirella
  • Ludger Woessmann
Abstract
While women's employment opportunities, relative wages, and the child quantity-quality trade-off have been studied as factors underlying historical fertility limitation, the role of women's education has received little attention. We combine Prussian county data from three censuses—1816, 1849, and 1867—to estimate the relationship between women's education and their fertility before the demographic transition. Despite controlling for several demand and supply factors, we find a negative residual effect of women's education on fertility. Instrumental-variable estimates using educational variation deriving from landownership concentration, as well as panel estimates controlling for fixed effects of counties, suggest that the effect of women's education on fertility is causal. Copyright , Oxford University Press.

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  • Sascha O. Becker & Francesco Cinnirella & Ludger Woessmann, 2013. "Does women's education affect fertility? Evidence from pre-demographic transition Prussia," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 17(1), pages 24-44, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:ereveh:v:17:y:2013:i:1:p:24-44
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    Cited by:

    1. Cinnirella, Francesco & Hornung, Erik, 2016. "Landownership concentration and the expansion of education," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 135-152.
    2. Viktor Malein, 2021. "Human Capital and Industrialization: German Settlers in Late Imperial Russia," Working Papers 0221, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    3. Brian Beach & W. Walker Hanlon, 2019. "Censorship, Family Planning, and the Historical Fertility Transition," NBER Working Papers 25752, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Diebolt, Claude & Mishra, Tapas & Perrin, Faustine, 2015. "Did Gender-Bias Matter in the Quantity-Quality Trade-off in 19th Century France?," Lund Papers in Economic History 141, Lund University, Department of Economic History.
    5. Timothy W. Guinnane & Jochen Streb, 2021. "The Introduction of Bismarck's Social Security System and its Effects on Marriage and Fertility in Prussia," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 47(3), pages 749-780, September.
    6. de la Croix, David & Perrin, Faustine, 2018. "How far can economic incentives explain the French fertility and education transition?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 221-245.
    7. Sascha O. Becker & Francesco Cinnirella & Erik Hornung & Ludger Woessmann, 2014. "iPEHD--The ifo Prussian Economic History Database," Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(2), pages 57-66, June.
    8. Fabian Siuda & Uwe Sunde, 2021. "Disease and demographic development: the legacy of the plague," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 1-30, March.
    9. Claude DIEBOLT & Gabriele FRANZMANN & Ralph HIPPE & Jürgen SENSCH, 2017. "The Power of Big Data : Historical Time Series on German Education," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(3), pages 329-376, September.
    10. Casper Worm Hansen & Peter Sandholt Jensen & Lars Lønstrup, 2014. "The Fertility Transition in the US: Schooling or Income?," Economics Working Papers 2014-02, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    11. Semrad, Alexandra, 2015. "Educational expansion and social composition of secondary schools: evidence from Bavarian school registries 1810-1890," Discussion Papers in Economics 25261, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    12. Klaus Deininger & Songqing Jin & Hari K. Nagarajan & Fang Xia, 2019. "Inheritance Law Reform, Empowerment, and Human Capital Accumulation: Second-Generation Effects from India," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(12), pages 2549-2571, December.
    13. Grimm, Michael, 2016. "Rainfall Risk and Fertility: Evidence from Farm Settlements during the American Demographic Transition," IZA Discussion Papers 10351, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Manoel Bittencourt, 2014. "Education and Fertility: Panel Time-Series Evidence from Southern Africa," Working Papers 431, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    15. Seung‐hun Chung & Mark D. Partridge, 2021. "De facto power of elites and regional growth," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 100(1), pages 169-202, February.
    16. Alberto Basso & David Cuberes, 2013. "Fertility and Financial Development: Evidence from U.S. Counties in the 19th Century," Working Papers 2013011, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.
    17. Charlotte Le Chapelain, 2013. "Cliométrie et Capital humain," Working Papers 01-13, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC).
    18. Michael Grimm, 2021. "Rainfall risk, fertility and development: evidence from farm settlements during the American demographic transition," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 21(4), pages 593-618.
    19. Ruth Maria Schüler, 2018. "Education Economics from a Historical Perspective," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 78.
    20. Manoel Bittencourt, 2018. "Primary education and fertility rates : Evidence from Southern Africa," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 26(2), pages 283-302, April.
    21. Beblo, Miriam & Görges, Luise, 2018. "On the nature of nurture. The malleability of gender differences in work preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 19-41.
    22. Manoel Bittencourt, 2014. "Primary Education and Fertility Rates in Southern Africa: Evidence from Before the Demographic Transition," Working Papers 201404, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    23. Muhammad Zakaria & Bashir Ahmed Fida & Saquib Yousaf Janjua & Syed Jawad Hussain Shahzad, 2017. "Fertility and Financial Development in South Asia," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 133(2), pages 645-668, September.

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