Topic: Women’s Access to School, Educational Attainment, and Fertility: Evidence from Jordan

Lecturer: Researcher Hongliang Zhang, School of Economics, Zhejiang University

Time: 9:00 a.m. October 16th, 2023

Venue: B321 Zhixin Building, Central Campus

Abstract:In socially conservative Muslim societies, the absence of a sex appropriate (i.e.,girls' or mixed) school in one's community has historically been a major constraint to girls’ schooling. In this paper we use the expansion of access to girls' or mixed schools in Jordan as a natural experiment to investigate the effects of access to school on women's education and fertility. We find that having access to a sex-appropriate school in a woman's sub- district of birth during or prior to her early primary school years led to 3.0--3.4 additional years of schooling and 1.0--1.4 fewer births. Using access to sex-appropriate schools as an instrument for female educational attainment, our instrumental variable estimates indicate that an additional year of schooling reduced total

fertility by 0.3--0.4 births.The impact of schooling on total fertility is mostly for births occurring at older ages (30+) and higher parities (6+). We also find evidence of intergenerational transmission of education, with additional maternal years of schooling increasing children's likelihood of pursuing post - compulsory education. However, there is little evidence that increased female educational attainment in Jordan has translated into higher participation in the labor market, which rules this out as a mechanism for reduced fertility.