Determinants of Fertility

Female Educational Status

The inverse relationship of women's education to fertility is well documented in most regions of the world. In general, there is a negative association between the number of years a girl spends in school and her childbearing as an adult. It is hypothesized that education has a direct effect on fertility through the knowledge, skills, and behaviors imparted through schooling that guide childbearing and childcare practice in adulthood ( Caldwell 1980, 1982; Cleland and van Ginneken 1988; Dexter, LeVine, and Velasco 198; diamond, Newby, and Varle 1999; LeVine et al. 1991). It is also widely believed that education affects fertility through a number of indirect pathways by delaying the age at first marriage and increasing the practice and efficacy of contraception ( Cochrane 1979; jejeebhoy 1995; Lesthaeghe et al, 1989). education is also though to enhance women's autonomy and control over childbearing decisions through more egalitarian conjugal relationships and increased control over economic resource (Jejeebhoy 1995; Mahmud and Johnson 1994; Mason 1984). the education-fertility relationship is most consistent among women who compel secondary and tertiary school ( Cleland and aufmann 1998; Jejeebhoy 1995), but this may reflect the similar socioeconomic status of this relatively small group of women rather than a unique set of skills acquired through post-primary education (Diamond, Newby, and Varle 1999). At the primary and pre-primary school levels, the categories into which most women in development countries fall, the inverse relationship of education to childbearing is inconsistent since an increase in the years of school may not lead to a decline in fertility in a linear fashion (LeVine 1999). Fertility may be lower among women with formal education than among those with some primary schooling in countries with low levels of literacy because even a few years of schooling may increase the likelihood having a live birth due to improvements in the mother's health and nutrition (Cochrane 1979).

VARIATION IN THE RELATIONSHIP

A further inconsistency is that the autonomy often associated with schooling may remain limited for the vast majority of women, regardless of their level of education, even though a country's fertility rate has begun to decline. This situation has been documented in Bangladesh and Egypt (Amin and Llod 1998) and Kenya ( Bradley 1995). The variation in the relationship between women's education and fertility decline at the primary and pre-primary levels suggests the need for further study of the factors that affect school levels suggests the need for further study of the factors that affect school attendance and fertility regulation at this important stage in the schooling process. sub-Saharan Africa is a region that has garnered a feat deal of interest among researchers studying the interplay between education and fertility. Although the educational attainment of women in the region is generally below that of men, the gender gap at the primary and secondary levels has begun to close in a number of African countries (Knodel and Jones 1996; Stromquist 1998). Moreover, while fertility remains high in Africa as a whole , this is changing in several parts of the continent, most notably in southern Africa (Kirk and Pillet 1998) and Kenya (Robinson 1992; Watkins 1995). The fertility decline in these areas has been attributed to a number of different factors, including increased used of contraceptives, the rising age of marriage, and the higher levels of education for women in countries like Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Kenya relative to the rest of the continent. The rapid and precipitous fertility decline in Kenya has received a freat deal of attention from demographers over the past decade (Brass and Jolly 1993; Watkins 1998; Westoff and Rodriguez 1995).

THE SCHOOL SYSTEM IN KENYA

The school system in Kenya and the factors affecting girls' educational achievement have also been examined by researchers interested in the education-fertility relationship (Lloyd and Mensch 1999; Lloyd, Mensch, and Clark 2000; Mensch and Lloyd 1998). compared to neighboring Tanzania and Uganda, Kenya has achieved a higher level of economic development and a high level of education attainment for girls at the primary and secondary levels, which are factors that may help explain the fertility transition underway the country (UNICEF 1999). the relationship between education and fertility in Tanzania and Uganda has not been as well studied even though the situating in these two countries is as intriguing as the Kenyan case. According to Lloyd, Kaufman, and Hewett (1999) , both Tanzania and Uganda have lower levels of contraceptive use than expected when compared to other African countries with similar levels of educational attainment. Yet this is where the similarities between the two countries end: Fertility has declined over the past decade in Tanzania (Kirk 1996; Larsen 1997). But it has not Uganda ( Uganda Demographic and Health Survey 1995 [UDHS 1995]). Moreover, Tanzania's female secondary school enrolment ratio of 5 is one of the lowest in sub-Saharan Africa and falls well below the ratio of 22 in Kenya and 9 in Uganda ( UNICEF 1999).

That a substantially larger percentage of young women are in secondary school in Uganda than in Tanzania makes the fertility treads in these two counties somewhat surprising. The education-fertility pattern is similar to the unexpected relationship between economic development and fertility decline in Tanzania and Uganda. The economy of Uganda nearly doubled from 1986 to 1996, making it one of the "best-performing economics in Africa" despite recuperating from the civil war of the 1970s and 1960s (Bigsten and Kayizzi-Mugerwa 1999,. Tanzania, on the other hand, has experience negative or very slight economic growth since the 1980s even though it has not been hampered by widespread civil unrest (Raikes and Gibbon 1996). The fact that fertility has declined only modestly in Uganda but has decreased significantly in Tanzania is an anomaly requiring further investigation. This takes a closer look at the education-fertility relationship in Tanzania and Uganda by comparing data from the most recent Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) for the two countries.