Women's education, infant and child mortality, and fertility decline in urban and rural sub-Saharan Africa: a quantitative assessment

David Shapiro, Pennsylvania State University
Michel Tenikue, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER)

Sub-Saharan Africa has uniquely high fertility. At the same time, women’s education and infant and child mortality have been shown to be important determinants of fertility and fertility decline. Previous research using aggregated data has shown the importance of increased women’s schooling and reduced infant and child mortality as major factors contributing to fertility decline in the region. This research uses individual-level micro data and a well-known decomposition technique for analyzing differences or changes to quantify the importance of increased women’s education and declining infant and child mortality in contributing to the observed declines in fertility in numerous countries. Data are from the Demographic and Health Surveys, from urban and rural places in 31 countries. The methodology is to decompose changes in fertility to changes attributable to different factors, including the two key variables of interest – women’s education and infant and child mortality – and a control variable, age.