Compulsory Education and Fertility over the Life Cycle – Evidence from a Natural Experiment

This paper examines the effect of compulsory education on women’s fertility over the reproductive life cycle, exploiting the 1972 compulsory schooling reform in Britain. Using data from the General Household Survey and a regression discontinuity design, the study finds that exposure to the reform is associated with a reduction of about 0.09 children for women observed at ages 20–30, but an increase of about 0.31 children for women observed at ages 40 and above. The pattern is consistent with a life-cycle interpretation in which compulsory education is associated with lower cumulative fertility at earlier stages but higher fertility accumulation at later stages of the reproductive life cycle. Overall, the findings indicate that education-induced reductions in early-life fertility need not translate into lower cumulative fertility observed at older ages.