The effect of female education on marital fertility in different size communities of Mexico

Abstract

Based on a very large sample of married women aged 15 to 49 from the 1970 census of Mexico, the effect of literacy and education on the number of children ever born in different size communities is investigated. While cumulative marital fertility tends to be inversely related to community size, the overall shape of the education‐fertility relationship is generally similar in rural, semi‐urban, small urban, and large urban localities. These results combined with those for literacy do not support the hypothesis of an urbanization or a literacy “threshold” at which women's schooling begins to reduce family size.