Emil O. W. Kirkegaard's article, "Female Education and Fertility Rates: This is not the cause you are looking for" (July 7, 2025), examines the relationship between how long women stay in school and how many children they have. A popular graph on X suggests that more years of female education lead to fewer children, but Kirkegaard argues this connection isn't as simple as it seems. Here's a straightforward outline of his key points for everyday readers, without the maths:

1.The Popular Claim: A widely shared graph shows a strong link between more years of female education and lower fertility rates (fewer children per woman). The data from Our World in Data, shows a correlation of 0.87, meaning the two seem closely tied across countries from 1950 to 2023.

2.Why It's Complicated: The graph treats all countries and years as independent data points, which can be misleading. Differences between countries (like culture or wealth) or changes over time might explain the pattern, not just education causing fewer babies.

3.Digging Deeper with Statistics:

Kirkegaard uses advanced statistical models to check if the link holds within countries over time, not just across them.

He finds that each extra year of female education is linked to about 0.36 to 0.41 fewer children per woman, but the effect isn't linear.

Surprisingly, after about 10 years of education (around high school completion), more education (like college) doesn't reduce fertility much further. The curve flattens or even slightly rises.

4.Key Finding: Education up to age 15–18 (middle to high school) seems to lower fertility, likely because it delays marriage and childbearing. But keeping women in school into their 20s (college or beyond) doesn't have the same impact. This challenges the idea that university education is the main reason for fewer babies.

5.Time Matters, but Not Much: The passage of time (1950–2023) has a small effect on fertility (about 0.45 fewer children over 70 years), but education is a bigger factor. Other changes, like wealth or technology, might be captured indirectly through education.

6.Sweden as an Example: Looking at Sweden, fertility rates based on current births (total fertility rate) fluctuate, but the actual number of children women have over their lifetime (cohort fertility rate) is more stable. This shows that short-term predictions can be unreliable.

7.What's Causing the Recent Fertility Drop? The global fertility decline after COVID-19 can't be explained by education or gradual time trends. Kirkegaard suggests something global, like the rise of internet and social media, might be influencing people's choices to have fewer children.

8.Takeaway: Female education does play a role in lowering fertility, but only up to a point (around 10 years). The bigger picture involves other factors, like cultural shifts or technology, that need more research. Blaming college education alone is too simplistic.

This outline simplifies Kirkegaard's statistical analysis, showing that while education matters, it's not the whole story behind why people are having fewer kids today.

https://www.emilkirkegaard.com/p/female-education-and-fertility-rates