Schooling, Information and Nonmarket Productivity: Contraceptive Use and Its Effectiveness

Information from two U.S. fertility surveys on couples' knowledge about the use of specific contraceptives are used to estimate the technology of human reproduction in order to examine the association between schooling and productivity in the household sector. The results indicate that more schooled couples have a wider knowledge of contraceptive methods; use more efficiently those contraceptive methods for which there is little information and large scope for misuse; and are better able to mitigate the effects of their biological constraints (fecundity) on their fertility compared to less-schooled couples.