EDUCATION

In the last part of the nineteenth century, the enforcement of compulsory schooling laws in most countries of Europe and in North America made school participation universal for all children. Starting in the early twentieth century, the United States led the way towards mass schooling at the secondary level with roughly 50 percent of young people earning high school diplomas by the 1940s. Susan Cotts Watkins, an American sociologist, in her study of the demographic integration of Europe from 1870 to 1960, identifies schooling as the most important aspect of nation building, particularly because of the enforcement of a national language. Since the end of World War II and the subsequent transition to nationhood of many former colonies, the spread of mass formal schooling has become a global phenomenon.

Progress towards mass formal schooling can be measured by examining changes in the educational distribution of the adult population or by looking at trends in the enrollment and attainment of the current school-age population. Figure 1 depicts trends from 1960 to 2000 in the percent of the adult population completing at least primary school, and in the percent of the adult population completing at least some secondary education, by region, as calculated by Robert J. Barro and Jong-Wha Lee in 2000, using data from censuses with intercensal adjustments based on net enrollment data. Dramatic progress has been recorded in all regions from a very low base in most of the developing world. As of 2000, while only 43 percent of the population in developing countries had completed at least a primary education, over 70 percent of these go on to attain some secondary education, which represents roughly one-third of the adult population. By contrast roughly 85 percent of adults living in advanced or transitional economies have completed primary school and the vast majority of these go on to at least some secondary education. Accompanying this growth in educational attainment has been a narrowing of the gender gap.

Despite progress, large gaps remain in primary and secondary enrollment rates both between regions and within regions of the developing world. In some cases past rates of growth have declined or been reversed in recent years. Sub-Saharan Africa remains a conspicuous laggard. Despite impressive growth in the early post-colonial period, as of 2000, no more than a quarter of the adult population in sub-Saharan Africa had completed primary school. Economic slowdowns in many countries of that region in the 1980s and 1990s have been linked with a stalling of past economic growth and in some cases actual declines in enrollments among the current school age population. Boys have been particularly affected.

Trends in the enrollment among school age populations are more difficult to measure and compare because of the well known inaccuracies of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization enrollment data that are based on Ministry of Education reports that are often exaggerated. Figure 2, which is based on 1990s household survey data from 41 developing countries participating in the Demographic and Health Surveys, the majority in Sub-Saharan Africa, shows the range of primary completion rates currently prevalent within each of the developing regions for young people aged 20 to 24. In all regions, there are some countries that have achieved close to universal primary completion rates. However the ranges are wide in each region and especially so in Africa. Among the 24 sub-Saharan African countries with data for the 1990's, the median value for primary completion rates is no more than one-third of the population aged 20 to 24.

The Consequences of Education for Demographic Outcomes

A great amount of empirical evidence, reviewed by Shireen Jejeebhoy in 1999, has documented the strong statistical association at the individual level between the number of grades (or levels) of schooling attained (particularly for women) and various subsequent demographic outcomes including the age of marriage, the number of births, child health and mortality, and children's educational attainment. There are various hypotheses as to the causal forces underlying this relationship but no definitive findings. The relationship could be explained by the following:

1. The increased knowledge and skills acquired in school;
2. The status it confers on those who receive it;
3. Its effect on participation and on potential earnings in the labor market (and by extension the opportunity costs associated with high fertility); and/or
4. By its effects on personal autonomy and agency, particularly in the case of girls and young women.

A 1999 U.S. National Research Council report, Critical Perspectives on Schooling and Fertility in the Developing World, found no clear answers. Indeed, with reference to hypothesis 4 above, other research points to the conservative nature of schooling as a socializing agent, particularly for girls, suggesting the possibility that schooling could reinforce existing

FIGURE 1

gender hierarchies rather than enhancing gender equity. Nonetheless, policy makers have concluded from the empirical evidence that investments in girls' schooling have high social and economic returns.

A different interpretation of the relationships between schooling and demographic outcomes is based on exploring the societal forces that trigger the fertility transition, or what some economists call the quantity-quality transition during which families decrease fertility and increase their investments in children. There is clear historical evidence that the enforcement of compulsory schooling laws and the spread of state power through national schooling systems using a common language and curriculum were key forces in reducing the demographic diversity prevalent in Europe in the mid-nineteenth century and in triggering the onset of European fertility transitions. In 1980, Australian demographer John C. Caldwell theorized that the arrival of mass formal schooling in developing countries would also serve as a trigger for the demographic transition, particularly if it involved both boys and girls and particularly if it involved socialization in Western middle class values. A recent review of the evidence in Africa by Lloyd, Kaufman and Hewett (2000) provides strong empirical support for this relationship. Further evidence at the country level comes from in-depth case studies in Nepal and Pakistan in which data collected at the community level show the positive effect of school availability on contraceptive use, even when the parents themselves have no formal education.

Once begun, the quantity-quality transition can be self-propelling. Although there is a natural tendency for rates of return to education to decline as

FIGURE 2

more children are educated, evidence from many Asian countries examined by Mark R. Montgomery, Mary Arends-Kuenning and Cem Mete in 2000 shows that this effect can be counteracted by beneficial macroeconomic changes resulting from increases in trade, physical capital, and technology, thus sustaining the quantity-quality transition.

Policy Implications

Educational opportunities of children are harmed by having many siblings in the home. The evidence for this, reviewed by economist Cynthia B. Lloyd in 1994, shows the disadvantage to children from large families to be greater in contexts where schooling is available but not fully subsidized by the state and where family support networks are confined to biological parents and their children. Furthermore, the negative consequences are particularly felt by girls, leading to intra-familial inequality in schooling levels among children in the same family.

Further research has explored the effects of unwanted fertility on investments in children's schooling in a range of developing country settings and has found that in the "middle to latter phases of a fertility transition, the positive effects of mother's education on children's education are likely to be reinforced by reductions in the incidence in unintended or excess fertility" (Montgomery and Lloyd, p. 249). Thus differences between families in their ability to achieve their fertility preferences will lead to intra-familial as well inter-familial inequalities in schooling outcomes.

Evidence of significant differences in enrollment rates across income or socioeconomic groups in a variety of different settings lends support to a variety of anti-poverty policy interventions in developing countries to reduce the costs to parents of sending their children to school as a means of increasing enrollments and achievement. Preliminary evidence suggests very positive short-term effects of such interventions.

While much has been learned about the familial determinants of enrollment and attainment, much less is known about the school factors–quality and content of instruction, degree of crowding, character of physical plant–that may also play a role. In 1996, David Card and Alan Krueger suggested this as a promising avenue for future research. They contend that it is "unclear whether this relationship [between school quality and educational attainment] results because students respond to the economic incentives created by a rise in the return to schooling [because of better quality] or because they find it more enjoyable to attend schools with smaller classes or better-paid teachers" (Card and Krueger, p. 123). Thus, they hint at the possibility that attitudes towards school and schooling may be another pathway of influence between school quality and grades attained besides cognitive competencies–a pathway that has been shown in numerous studies on school effectiveness to be positively affected by certain school quality factors such as time to learn, material resources, and the quality of teaching.

In less-developed countries where enrollment even at the primary level is far from universal, the potential implications of school quality for educational attainment are profound. Indeed, a major vehicle through which school quality may affect cognitive competencies, earnings and subsequent demographic outcomes is through its impact on retention and educational attainment. Only a few studies in Ghana, Kenya, and Egypt have explored this relationship. There is some intriguing evidence that parents may be highly sensitive to visible changes in school quality in choosing between schools when school choice is available.

A review of the large and growing body of literature indicates various gaps in data and research: (1) comparable population-based data on enrollment, progression, and grade attainment by age and sex for all countries in the world; (2) longitudinal studies of the pathways through which educational attainment affects subsequent adult decisions relating to the timing of marriage, the size of the family, and investments in children as well as child rearing practices that affect children's health and mortality and their subsequent progress in school; and (3) longitudinal studies of the effect of specific elements of school quality on progression to higher levels of schooling, transitions into the labor market and into marriage, and subsequent parental decision-making about fertility, childrearing, and investments in children's education.

Study of the education-demographic nexus is also becoming of increasing relevance in the high-income countries. Rising rates of return in the labor market to higher education (not only in absolute terms but also differentially) for both men and women have resulted in a steady rise in the proportion of the population with post-secondary schooling. For example, the 2000 U.S. census results show that the percentage of people 25 to 29 years old completing college has risen to 29 percent–its highest level ever–with the completion rates of young women now slightly exceeding those of young men. The resulting increases in labor force participation of women even after marriage and childbearing in response to rising rates of return in the labor market have led to dramatic changes in the family, including delayed child bearing, increasing rates of childlessness, higher divorce rates, greater rates of female hardship, and larger proportions of dual career couples observed in most industrialized countries.

See also: Adolescent Fertility; Fertility, Below-Replacement; Fertility Transition, Socioeconomic Determinants of; Literacy.

bibliography

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Montgomery, Mark R., and Cynthia B. Lloyd. 1999. "High Fertility, Unwanted Fertility, and Children's Schooling." In Critical Perspectives on Schooling and Fertility in the Developing World, ed. Caroline Bledsoe, John B. Casterline, Jennifer A. Johnson-Kuhn, and John G. Haaga. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

Summers, Lawrence H. 1994. "Investing in All the People; Educating Women in Developing Countries." EDI Seminar Paper No 45.

Watkins, Susan Cotts. 1991. From Provinces into Nations: Demographic Integration in Western Europe, 1970–1960. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Cynthia B. Lloyd