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World Fertility Surveys carried out in 38 developing countries indicate that from 2 to 98% of married women of fertile age have had no schooling while the proportion with 10 or more years of education ranges from 0 to 24%. On average women aged 25-29 have received about 2 years more schooling than those aged 45-49. The surveys show an overall pattern of decreasing fertility with increasing education. In Sub-Saharan Africa differences in fertility tend to be small whereas in the other regions they tend to be large. In about 40% of the countries women with 7 or more years of schooling have only 1/2 the level of current fertility of women with no education. In general the magnitude and form of the relationship between desired family size and education does not correspond well with fertility differentials by educational level even though both actual and desired fertility are lowest among women with the most schooling. Education however is positively associated with the likelihood that a woman will give a numerical answer when asked about desired family size. With few exceptions contraceptive practice and age at marriage increase with increased education. The singulate mean age at marriage for women with 7 or more years of education is almost 4 years higher than that of women with no education. The difference in contraceptive prevalance is 24 percentage points. Tentative evidence indicates that family planning programs can reduce the size of educational differentials in contraceptive use by speeding the diffusion of contraceptive practice. (authors modified) (summaries in ENG SPA FRE)
Mary Beth Weinberger (Mon,) studied this question.