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Fertility and Schooling: How this Relation Changed between 1995 and 2005 in Colombia
Abstract
We test the existence of changes in the relationship between fertility and schooling in Colombia for women from 30 to 40 years old between 1995 and 2005. For our purpose, we use Poisson Regression Models. Our database is the Demographic and Health Survey from 1995 and 2005. We found a reduction in the fertility during this period and an increase in the educative level of the population. According to our results the total number of children a woman has, keeps an inverse relationship with her educative level, which may be explained by the effects of education on the knowledge of the fertility. We also find that the effect of an additional year of education in 1995 is higher than 2005. Besides, we also find that there are significant rural-urban differences in the determinants on fertility for Colombia’s women in the last decade. *** En este trabajo se pretende evaluar la existencia de cambios en la relación entre fecundidad y escolaridad en Colombia para mujeres de 30 a 40 años de edad entre 1995 y 2005. Para tal efecto se utilizan modelos de Poisson sobre la Encuesta Nacional de Demografía y Salud 1995 y 2005. Se encuentra una reducción en la fecundidad durante el periodo y su relación inversa con la escolaridad, que puede ser explicada por el efecto de la educación sobre otras variables como el incremento en el conocimiento sobre los programas de control natal. Se encuentra además que el efecto de un año adicional de educación sobre la fecundidad es mayor en 1995 que en 2005. De otro lado, se encuentra que las diferencias entre zonas urbanas y rurales son significativas en la explicación de la fecundidad en Colombia durante la última década.
... Some evidence for Colombia has been provided recently. (Forero and Gamboa (2008)). Families with a lower schooling level tend to have less knowledge of contraception methods and this leads to bigger families in low-income and less educated groups than in higher ones. ...
In this paper, we attempt to analyze the determinants of unintended births among Colombian women aged 40 years old or more using data from the Encuesta Nacional de Demografía y Salud 2005, which is Colombia's national demographic and health survey. Given the especial characteristics of the variable under analysis, we used count data models in order to test whether certain characteristics of women and their socioeconomic backgrounds such as their level and years of schooling or socioeconomic group, explain the number of unintended births. We found that women's education and the area of residence are significant determinants of unintended births. The inverse relationship between the level of education of women and the number of unintended births has key implications to social policies.
... (See e.g. Forero andGamboa (2008)). Families with a lower schooling level tend to have less knowledge of contraception methods and this leads to bigger families in low-income and less educated groups than in higher ones. ...
In this paper, we attempt to analyze the determinants of unintended births among Colombian women aged 40 years old or more using data from the ‘Encuesta Nacional de Demografía y Salud ENDS- 2005”, which is Colombia´s national demographic and health survey. Given the especial characteristics of the variable under analysis, we used count data models in order to test whether certain characteristics of women and their socioeconomic backgrounds such as their level and years of schooling or socioeconomic group, explain the number of unintended births. We found that women’s education and the area of residence are significant determinants of unintended births. The inverse relationship between the level of education of women and the number of unintended births has key implications to social policies. El artículo analiza los determinantes de la presencia de hijos no deseados en Colombia. Se utiliza la información de la Encuesta Nacional de Demografía y Salud (ENDS, 2005), específicamente para las mujeres de 40 años o más. Dadas las características especiales de la variable que se analiza, se utilizan modelos de conteo para verificar si determinadas características socioeconómicas como la educación o el estrato económico explican la presencia de hijos no deseados. Se encuentra que la educación de la mujer y el área de residencia son determinantes significativos de los nacimientos no planeados. Además, la relación negativa entre el número de hijos no deseados y la educación de la mujer arroja implicaciones clave en materia de política social.
Conditional cash transfers are programs under which poor families get a stipend provided they keep their children in school and take them for health checks. Although there is significant evidence showing that they have positive impacts on school participation, little is known about the long-term impacts of the programs on human capital. This paper investigates whether cohorts of children from poor households that benefited up to nine years from Familias en Acción, a conditional cash transfer program in Colombia, attained more school and performed better on academic tests at the end of high school. Identification of program impacts is derived from two different strategies using matching techniques with household surveys, and regression discontinuity design using a census of the poor and administrative records of the program. The authors show that, on average, participant children are 4 to 8 percentage points more likely than nonparticipant children to finish high school, particularly girls and beneficiaries in rural areas. Regarding long-term impact on tests scores, the analysis shows that program recipients who graduate from high school seem to perform at the same level as equally poor non-recipient graduates, even after correcting for possible selection bias when low-performing students enter school in the treatment group. Although the positive impacts on high school graduation may improve the employment and earning prospects of participants, the lack of positive effects on test scores raises the need to further explore policy actions to couple the program's objective of increasing human capital with enhanced learning.
Datos de un estudio nacional de 1985 (N = 5.687 mujeres con edades entre 18-50 años) son utilizados para examinar los efectos de la urbanización e industrialización en las cifras de fertilidad en España. Los factores analizados incluyen el número de hijos deseados, la zona residencial, el nivel de educación, el tamaño de la vivienda, la religión, el número de hermanos, la ocupación del marido, la edad, el número de niños nacidos vivos, y los nacimientos no deseados. Las proyecciones se dan para diversas categorías de edad de mujeres, estimando los efectos de cada variable independiente. Así se proyecta una disminución del 15% en la fertilidad total para el período 1985-2000, debido a los cambios en las estructuras de la población, sociales, y económicas.
This paper challenges the widely held and influential view that the fertility transition is largely the consequence of changing parental demand for children brought about by changes in the economic costs and benefits entailed in childbearing. Using evidence from both historical and contemporary populations we argue that demand theories do not offer a plausible explanation of the fertility transition. Instead, we propose that ideational, rather than structural, economic change lies at the heart of the transition. In particular, we suggest that attitudes to birth control, broadly defined, play a crucial role.
1. Introduction 2. Causal and non-causal models 3. Microeconomic data structures 4. Linear models 5. ML and NLS estimation 6. GMM and systems estimation 7. Hypothesis tests 8. Specification tests and model selection 9. Semiparametric methods 10. Numerical optimization 11. Bootstrap methods 12. Simulation-based methods 13. Bayesian methods 14. Binary outcome models 15. Multinomial models 16. Tobit and selection models 17. Transition data: survival analysis 18. Mixture models and unobserved heterogeneity 19. Models of multiple hazards 20. Models of count data 21. Linear panel models: basics 22. Linear panel models: extensions 23. Nonlinear panel models 24. Stratified and clustered samples 25. Treatment evaluation 26. Measurement error models 27. Missing data and imputation A. Asymptotic theory B. Making pseudo-random draw.
In this piece, the author examines the problem of education vs. fertility. The main objective is to re-assess the relationship between the two. In the prevailing view in demographic literature, education is treated as a highly influential factor in reproductive behaviour. This view posits a simple linear relationship between education and fertility and hence assigns to both a rather mechanical interdependency. To surpass such speculations, a multi-disciplinary approach is called for. It is argued that education and fertility make, rather than a simply linear relationship, a subtle pair with many markedly intertwined dependencies. Analysed are selected heterogeneous geographical regions of Slovenia and their population structure as well as selected population groups throughout Slovenia. The analyses bring to the fore evidence in support of the thesis on a curved relationship between education and fertility. It is concluded that disparities in fertility rates among women with dissimilar levels of education in the studied territories were slowly diminish-ing through time, or have converted into other kinds of factor relations.
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A researcher examined the effect of women's schooling on fertility, paying particular attention to whether women's schooling is an exogenous determinant of fertility. The analyzed data were from the US National Opinion Research Center's General Social Survey for the years 1985-91. This survey is a random sample of 1500 English-speaking people, at least 18 years old, who live in noninstitutional settings. Estimates were made of children ever born to women aged 35-44 and 45=54 using ordinary least squares and two-stage least squares (with the latter including the schooling of the respondent's parents as variables). Other variables used besides schooling were age, being Black, region at age 16 (relative to the south), type of residence at age 16 (relative to cities of 250,000). being Catholic, being Mormon, and survey year. Using the Hausman test to regress the variable of schooling on the exogenous variables results in a residual, and a t-test on the coefficient for the residual will test for endogeneity. In each group of women, the t-statistic on the residual was 1.1, suggesting that schooling is not highly endogenous with fertility. Schooling does, however, have a highly negative effect on fertility in both estimates. A 10% increase in schooling is associated with a 10-12% decline in fertility for women aged 35-44 and with a 7-10% decline for women aged 45-54. Therefore, schooling can be used as an independent variable without leading to false acceptance of socioeconomic theories of fertility. Schooling may reduce fertility by increasing a woman's income, thus making child rearing more expensive, or by enhancing a woman's ability to control fertility.
This paper provides empirical evidence on fertility determinants in Arab countries. Adopting a macro and micro framework
and exploiting panel and count data models the paper estimates the impact of cultural and economic factors on the demand for
children. The results obtained strongly support the hypothesis that cross-country heterogeneity buttresses differentiated
fertility and that female education mitigates high fertility. Child mortality and parent‘s preferences for sons positively
affect fertility. By and large, demand for children is price and income inelastic.
This article examines the relationship between female schooling and two behaviors—cumulative fertility and contraceptive use—in
fourteen Sub-Saharan African countries where Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) have been conducted since the mid-1980s.
Average levels of schooling among women of reproductive age are very low, from less than two years to six. Controlling for
background variables, the last years of female primary schooling have a negative relation with fertility in about half the
countries, while secondary schooling is associated with substantially lower fertility in all countries. Female schooling has
a positive relationship with contraceptive use at all levels. Among ever-married women, husband's schooling exerts a smaller
effect than does female schooling on contraceptive use and, in almost all cases, on fertility. Although the results suggest
commonalities among these Sub-Saharan countries, they also reveal intriguing international differences in the impact of female
schooling, which might reflect differences in the quality of schooling, labor markets, and family planning programs, among
others.
This paper estimates the impact of random terrorist attacks (landmines) in Colombia on the health of babies born between 1998 and 2003. The results suggest that these types of terrorist activities that occur during a woman’s first trimester of pregnancy have a negative and significant impact on child health outcomes such as birth weight and preterm deliveries, and behaviors such as use of prenatal care. These findings persist when mother fixed effects are included, suggesting that neither observable nor unobservable characteristics of the mothers are driving the results. The paper contributes to the existing literature by identifying yet another important channel through which violence affects economic well being. Given that studies have found a strong link between Low Birth Weight (LBW) and short and long-term socioeconomic outcomes, the negative consequences of violence identified in this paper may have long-term effects on economic activity.
La reducción de la fecundidad ha ocurrido en todos los países de la región Latinoamericana, como consecuencia de un descenso en la fecundidad deseada y un aumento en el uso de métodos modernos de planificación familiar. Los descensos en fecundidad –deseada y observada- no han sido homogéneos entre estratos sociales, observándose un patrón claro entre grupos de países en todos los indicadores de estratificación social, el cual favorece la disminución de las inequidades mucho más en los países de transición avanzada que en los países de fecundidad rezagada. Para promover descensos en la fecundidad es necesario primero promover descensos en la fecundidad deseada, y luego promover la aceptación, el acceso y el uso de métodos modernos de planificación familiar. La educación ha demostrado ser uno de los canales efectivos para disminuir la fecundidad deseada y observada. Con el fin de facilitar la movilidad social, estos procesos deben incentivarse especialmente en los grupos de estrato social bajo, y en los países de fecundidad rezagada.
The book provides graduate students and researchers with an up-to-date survey of statistical and econometric techniques for the analysis of count data, with a focus on conditional distribution models. Proper count data probability models allow for rich inferences, both with respect to the stochastic count process that generated the data, and with respect to predicting the distribution of outcomes. The book starts with a presentation of the benchmark Poisson regression model. Alternative models address unobserved heterogeneity, state dependence, selectivity, endogeneity, underreporting, and clustered sampling. Testing and estimation is discussed from frequentist and Bayesian perspectives. Finally, applications are reviewed in fields such as economics, marketing, sociology, demography, and health sciences. The fifth edition contains several new topics, including copula functions, Poisson regression for non-counts, additional semi-parametric methods, and discrete factor models. Other sections have been reorganized, rewritten, and extended.
The socioeconomic determinants of cumulative and recent fertility are investigated with micro data from Jamaica, a middle-income country with low rates of infant mortality and total fertility. Infant mortality has a significant nonlinear influence on fertility, peaking at a mortality rate of 0.46. Both education and income have strong negative effects on births but the impact of education is larger; for rural women the birth elasticities are −0.15 and −0.45 for income and education, respectively. Finally, the transmission of the education effect appears to be through raising the value of time of the woman rather than changing preferences.
The literature generally points to a negative relationship between female education and fertility. Citing this pattern, policymakers have advocated educating girls and young women as a means to reduce population growth and foster sustained economic and social welfare in developing countries. This paper tests whether the relationship between fertility and education is indeed causal by investigating the introduction of universal primary education in Nigeria. Exploiting differences in program exposure by region and age, the paper presents reduced form and instrumental variables estimates of the impact of female education on fertility. The analysis suggests that increasing female education by one year reduces early fertility by 0.26 births.
The book provides graduate students and researchers with an up-to-date survey of statistical and econometric techniques for the analysis of count data, with a focus on conditional distribution models. Proper count data probability models allow for rich inferences, both with respect to the stochastic count process that generated the data, and with respect to predicting the distribution of outcomes. The book starts with a presentation of the benchmark Poisson regression model. Alternative models address unobserved heterogeneity, state dependence, selectivity, endogeneity, underreporting, and clustered sampling. Testing and estimation is discussed from frequentist and Bayesian perspectives. Finally, applications are reviewed in fields such as economics, marketing, sociology, demography, and health sciences. The fifth edition contains several new topics, including copula functions, Poisson regression for non-counts, additional semi-parametric methods, and discrete factor models. Other sections have been reorganized, rewritten, and extended.
Datos de un estudio nacional de 1985 (N = 5.687 mujeres con edades entre 18-50 años) son utilizados para examinar los efectos de la urbanización e industrialización en las cifras de fertilidad en España. Los factores analizados incluyen el número de hijos deseados, la zona residencial, el nivel de educación, el tamaño de la vivienda, la religión, el número de hermanos, la ocupación del marido, la edad, el número de niños nacidos vivos, y los nacimientos no deseados. Las proyecciones se dan para diversas categorías de edad de mujeres, estimando los efectos de cada variable independiente. Así se proyecta una disminución del 15% en la fertilidad total para el período 1985-2000, debido a los cambios en las estructuras de la población, sociales, y económicas
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