The Contribution of Education to South Korea's Fertility Decline to ‘Lowest-Low’ Level

This paper examines the rapid fall of South Korea's fertility to lowest-low level, focusing on rising levels of education as a contributing cause. The fall occurred mainly because of major declines in parity progression from woman's own birth to first birth and from first to second birth, combined with major postponement of first births accounted for mainly by major increases in age at first marriage. A decomposition analysis indicates that changes in population composition by woman's education account for only about seven percent of the decline in the total fertility rate between 1995 and 2005. This figure probably understates substantially the contribution of rising levels of education to the fertility decline. We speculate that rapidly rising levels of education additionally contributed to fertility decline through increased competition for good jobs and greater investment in children's education through private cram schools.