Fertility Decline and Educational Progress Among African Women and Children

Abstract Theories linking fertility decline to rising education levels among women and children have featured prominently in discussions of African fertility change. Using survey data from 33 countries, this article leverages cross-place and cross-cohort variation to assess these theories’ relevance to the continent's transitions in both realized and desired fertility. Across countries and subnational regions, lower fertility is associated with greater education for both mothers and children. Across cohorts within a country or region, fertility decline remains associated with the educational progress of women but has at most a weak relationship with the educational progress of children. These findings corroborate existing evidence that women's education drives fertility change but indicate a more limited role for the interplay of the number of children and their education. Reductions in ideal family size more consistently predict children's educational progress, suggesting that this interplay may become more relevant to African fertility change as ideals shift and their implementation improves.