| Modelling the impact of women’s education on fertility in Malawi |
| Authors: |
Luca Zanin, Rosalba Radice, Giampiero Marrajpeg |
| Source: |
Journal of Population Economics, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00148-013-0502-8 |
| Topic(s): |
Education
Fertility
Modelling
|
| Country: |
Africa
Malawi
|
| Published: |
FEB 2014 |
| Abstract: |
Abstract Many studies have suggested that there is an inverse relationship between
education and number of children among women from sub-Saharan Africa countries,
including Malawi. However, a crucial limitation of these analyses is that they do not
control for the potential endogeneity of education. The aim of our study is to estimate
the role of women’s education on their number of children in Malawi, accounting for
the possible presence of endogeneity and for nonlinear effects of continuous observed
confounders. Our analysis is based on micro data from the 2010 Malawi Demographic
Health Survey, and uses a flexible instrumental variable regression approach.
The results suggest that the relationship of interest is affected by endogeneity and
exhibits an inverted U-shape among women living in rural areas of Malawi, whereas
it exhibits an inverse (nonlinear) relationship for women living in urban areas.
Keywords Education · Endogeneity · Number of children · Instrumental variable ·
Inverted U-shape · Two-stage generalized additive model |
|